This bioiir ivos CDfitributoi from
tfie pEraotiol coQortton of
Colvin f. Scfimui
Professor Cmeritus of Socido^,
founifer of tfie Office of Population Posaucfi
Uruversit^of Uasfiin^hm,
and » nu^or f^ure in tfie devdopmntof
urban ada^ and stodstiad ^nqjftics
tfluoust. IMS
ONE AMERICA
The History^ Contributions^ and
Present Problems of Our Racial
and National Minorities
edited by
FRANCIS J. BROWN, Ph. D.
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
CONSULTANT, AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION
and
JOSEPH SLABEY ROUCEK, Ph. D.
CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
AND SOCIOLOGY, HOFSTRA COLLEGE
REVISED EDITION
OUR RACIAL AN0 NATIONAL MINORITIES
New York
PRENTICE-HALL, INC.
1945
PRENTICE-HALL EDUCATION SERIES
E. George Payne, Editor
CO^YRKJHT, 1937, 1945, BY
PRENTICE-HALL, INC.
70 Fifth Avenue, New York
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE
REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM, BY MIMEOGRAPH OR ANY
OTHER MEANS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM
THE PUBLISHERS.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEDICATION
T o DR. E. GEORGE PAYNE, DEAN OF THE
SCHOOL of’ education, NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY, WHOSE VITAL INTEREST BOTH
IN STUDENTS AND IN PEOPLE OF EVERY
RACE AND NATIONALITY HAS POINTED THE
WAY TO A CULTURAL DEMOCRACY BASED ON
MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIA-
TION; AND DR. HENRY E. MARESH OF HOUS-
TON, TEXAS, AN OUTSTANDING AMERICAN
CZECHOSLOVAK, PHYSICIAN, AND AUTHOR.
Contributors To ^^One America''
A. J. Barnouw
Columbia University
Emory S. Bogardus
University of Southern California
at Los Angeles
Byron Brophy
War Manpower Commission
Francis J. Brown
Consultant, American Council
on Education
Sterling Brown
Howard University
Quincy Guy Burris
New Mexico Highlands University
Yaroslav J. Chyz
Common Council for American Unity
Everett Ross Clinchy
National Conference of Christians
and Jews
Stewart G. Cole
Bureau for Intercultural Education
Maurice R. Davie
Yale University
Dan Dodson
MayoYs Committee on Unity, New York
A. B. Faust
Cornell University
E. Franklin Frazier
Howard University
Rouben Gavoor
Army of the United States
Elmer L. Hedin
Halcyon, California
B. J. Hovde
State Department
James Weldon Johnson *
Willard Johnson
National Conference of Christians
and Jews
Thorsten V. Kalijarvi
University of New Hampshire
Habid I. Katibah
Office of War Information
Samuel Koenig
Brooklyn College
Kum Pui Lai
National Tuberculosis Association
Julius B. Maller
The American Jewish Committee
E. George Payne
New York University
M. J, POLITIS
Greek Embassy
A . J. Reilly
Hunter College
Joseph Slabey Roucek
Hofstra College
Marian Schibsby
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Harry Schneiderman
The American Jewish Committee
Herbert L. Seamans
National Conference of Christians
and Jews
Rufus D. Smith
New York University
Howard E. Wilson
Harvard University
Clark Wissler
The American Museum of Natural
History, New York
Deceased
IV
Preface to the Revised Edition
S INCE Our Racial and National Minorities appeared in 1937 the
world has been plunged into total war. Through more than five
years, men and nations have been pitted against one another in a life
and death struggle. Even those few nations that remained neutral
have not escaped the repercussions of the struggle. There is not
a home that has not felt its impact, from a limitation of food to a
gold star in the window.
Two concomitants of war are inescapable: a deepening of the
sense of loyalty to the nation of one’s allegiance, and a corresponding
antagonism, rising to tense emotion, toward the nation that thwarts
the self-interest of “my country.”
Yet America, made up of peoples from every nation of the world,
has attained and maintained an internal unity that was the bitterest
disappointment to those abroad who believed th%t first- or even
second-generation “native sons” would remain true to the “home-
land.” True, Bundist organizations sprang up, seditious material
was published, and a resultant mass trial of those who sought to
undermine the loyalty of men in the armed forces became necessary.
The number of persons engaged in such activities is insignificant,
however, in comparison with the millions of their countrymen who
have kept the faith with America. Our allies have been their allies,
and our enemies, their enemies, though tied by bonds of language, of
culture, and of blood to a nation with which we were at war. In
the changing alignments of war, this loyalty has meant for many
of foreign birth or foreign stock an abrupt shift and the acceptance
of attitudes contrary to old-world patterns. In a very real sense,
they have demonstrated in the acid test of war that they are
Americans.
Recognizing the dualism of this internal unity and the intensifica-
tion of conflict resulting from the changed status of certain minority
groups, especially the Negro, the authors gave serious consideration
to many questions in planning this revision. Should one still refer
to “minority groups” in a nation unified by, war; or is such unity
for the meeting of a common foe only temporary! and thus super-
VI
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
ficial? In other words, will the inevitable adjustments made among
groups during the war enhance rather than diminish a sense of diver-
sification in the postwar period? Should one-third of the population
of America continue to be labeled “hyphenated Americans”? Will
“cultural pluralism” be replaced by a common cultural pattern?
A careful analysis indicates clearly that while the war has brought
gains that would otherwise have taken decades, it has not and cannot
wholly eliminate the irrational attitudes and practices characteristic
of a heterogeneous society. Some of the gains will probably be lost
after the war, especially if the nation is faced with anything less
than full employment. Although the war has resulted in an even
deeper sense of loyalty to America, it has brought also an intensifica-
tion of concern for the welfare and future of the “homeland.” One
need only point out the rapid expansion of relief agencies soliciting
for individual nations and the organizations promoting the inde-
pendence of the European nations in the postwar reconstruction.
So, too, culture patterns persist and cultural pluralism has been abetted
even by government in its endorsement of the continuance of the
foreign language press and foreign language broadcasts. Cultural
pluralism will continue long after the war, and the flow of immigra-
tion and emigration which will then be’ resumed will perpetuate and
reintensify the existence of many cultures within the larger pattern
of America.
Why, then, a revision rather than another reprint? As previously
stated, the war has telescoped the gains and losses of decades of social
change into a few years. It is necessary to describe these changes
and to appraise them in the light of their potential continuance in
the postwar period. Even more, the change of title is an expression
of the editors’ deep conviction that in the period between the two
editions and in the crucible of war we are moving toward a cultural
democracy. We have become and will remain One America!
The editors and the individual contributors have brought the
material of their chapters up to date and in several instances have
entirely rewritten them. Some chapters have been eliminated or
combined with others. Several of the chapters have been written by
contributors other than those to the original edition and are entirely
new. These include all the chapters dealing with the Negro, a num-
ber of the discussions of the other minority groups, “The Foreign-
Language Negro Press” (Chapter XII), “The American Indian and
Government” (Chapter XVIII), and “Religion and Minority Peoples”
(Chapter XXIV),
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION vii
New chapters have been added both in the general presentation
and for specific groups including “Backgrounds of America’s Hetero-
geneity” (Chapter II), “Foreign-Language Broadcasts” (Chapter
XIII), “Fraternal Organizations of National Minority Groups”
(Chapter XIV), “National Minorities in Domestic Politics” (Chapter
XV), “America’s Minorities and Foreign Politics” (Chapter XVI),
“Culture Patterns of Minority Groups” (Chapter XX), “Second-
and Third-Generation Americans” (Chapter XXI), “Our Vanishing
Minorities” (Chapter XXVII), “New Attitudes in Community Rela-
tions” (Chapter XXVIII), “Intercultural Education” (Chapter
XXIX), “Changing Attitudes Through Classroom Instruction”
(Chapter XXX), and “Intercultural Education and International
Relations” (Chapter XXXI) .
Despite these additions, the entire volume has been substantially
shortened. Every effort has been made to avoid “dating” the book
or viewing the material from the temporary and artificial viewpoint
of war. The problems of minorities are as old as tribal conquests;
they will persist in the future.
The editors are deeply appreciative of the reception accorded the
first edition. It is their earnest hope that this revised edition, written
from the vantage point of accelerated social change, will have even
greater influence in achieving the purpose of the original volume:
“the development of the sympathetic understanding and wholehearted
appreciation which must characterize the higher plane of our civili-
zation and culture, where intolerance, oppression, and prejudice,
unjustified and unfounded, will have no place.”
Sincere acknowledgment is given to the many individuals who
have in various ways assisted in the preparation of this revision, and
especially to Helen G. Brown, wife of Francis J. Brown, whose many
helpful suggestions in the editing of the entire manuscript are very
deeply appreciated. Mrs. Bozena S. Roucek has clarified for her
husband numerous points pertaining particularly to the problems of
Slav immigrants.
Francis J. Brown
Joseph S. Roucek
Co-Authors and Editors
X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Part III differs from previous studies of minority groups in that,
as far as possible, the specific sociological problems are drawn in-
ductively from the data of Part 11. Although it was impracticable
to submit the previous chapters to each of the contributors, all were
given a detailed outline of the entire volume; and, as far as possible,
each has developed his material in the light of this inductive approach.
In Part IV the way is pointed out to what the authors believe is
the only possible solution: the acceptance of the best from all of
our minority groups through the development of the idea of “cultural
pluralism.” To overlook the contribution of these groups to Amer-
ican life, both in its historical development and in the present, is to
ignore the most obvious facts. Sympathetic understanding and can-
did appreciation must supplant the formerly much overemphasized
idea of the “melting pot.” The final chapter gives at least a glimpse
of the way in which central Europe is seeking to solve the same
problem, providing an interesting comparison and contrast.
The approach to the problem is primarily from the standpoint of
educational sociology. Conceiving education as the sum total of
the experience that molds the attitudes and determines the conduct
of both the child and the adult, this volume seeks to analyze this ex-
perience in each specific group and in the general analysis of the
sociological factors that lead to social control. The importance of
such specific educational agencies as the press, the church, and the
many group organizations is clearly shown. Likewise, the relation-
ship of the school to the larger aspects of the problem is continually
emphasized. To the ever-increasing number who believe that the
school must assume responsibility for seeking, honestly and earnestly,
to decrease racial and social tensions and build mutual respect and
understanding, this book will be a welcome source of material through
its summary and systematic evaluation of the contributions of each
minority group to our total cultural life.
It will also be a source of information for the teacher, the social
worker, the clergyman, and all others interested in better under-
standing their fellow men. To the minorities themselves it will
provide a summary of the present status and contributions of their
own and related groups.
This book has been conceived jointly by both editors. Both
acknowledge their obligations to numerous individuals for sugges-
tions, and both are well aware of the limitations of the present volume.
If the treatment is not always complete and at times seems even
superficial, the critic should recognize the broad scope of the material
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xi
and the necessity of maintaining definite limits to hold the book to
a reasonable length. The studies are actually summaries of widely
scattered information. In some cases they are concerned with mi-
nority groups on whom information in Enghsh is not easily accessible
or does not exist. In no case could the treatment be exhaustive; it is
rather the foundation upon which further studies can be made. In
fairness to the authors of the various chapters, it should be said that
all of them have been aware of this limitation and, upon the insistence
of the editors, they have had to keep within certain limits even at the
expense of eliminating important and relevant material. B'or those
who wish to make more exhaustive studies, a comprehensive bibhog-
raphy is appended, hmited again by space to works in English.
It has been necessary to make certain arbitrary changes in some of
the material. All diacritical marks are omitted, and foreign names
are frequently anglicized. Statistical data that are but a reproduc-
tion of United States census figures have been intentionally omitted
unless essential to the text. The terms “old” and “new” immigration
have been retained as a convenient means of denoting the comparative
times of greatest influx. It is recognized, of course, that immigrants
continue to arrive from the countries included under “old” immi-
gration and that most of the so-called “new” immigrant groups date
their first arrivals from pre-Revolutionary days. Only one territory,
Hawaii, has been included. All the South American countries have
been treated as a unit. There is no relationship between the numer-
ical importance of a minority group and the number of pages devoted
to it, as the editors felt that such an allotment would but repeat the
all too common error of excluding or minimizing the minorities from
the smaller countries, for whom the problem is thereby often made
all the more acute.
Finally, the individuals mentioned as contributors to American
life have been chosen by the various authors on the basis of their
contributions to the common welfare. For the most part they have
been classified according to their native lands, although several in-
dividuals are “claimed” by more than one national group, owing to
changes of residence or to shifting boundaries. This is also true of
those who have no poHtical “homeland,” such as the Ukrainians and
the Jews. This is inevitable; and to the extent that it demonstrates
ethnocentrism, it is both interesting and significant.
The editors and authors express their sincere appreciation to Dean
E. George Payne of New York University, editor of the Prentice-
Hall educational series, whose classes in “Racial Contributions to
xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
American Culture” inspired the idea of the book, and whose support
and encouragement have acted as a continual incentive.
The task of compilation has not been easy. Endless correspond-
ence and many conferences have been necessary. But no amount
of effort will be begrudged if this book even partly achieves its pur-
pose — ^the development of the sympathetic understanding and whole-
hearted appreciation which must characterize the higher plane of
our civilization and culture, where intolerance, oppression, and
prejudice, unjustified and unfounded, will have no place.
Francis J. Brown
Joseph S. Roucek
Editors
Table of Contents
PART I: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Meaning and Status of Minorities, Francis
J. Brown i
II. Backgrounds of America’s * Heterogeneity, Fran-
cis J. Brown 13
PART II: OUR MINORITY PEOPLES
III. The American Indian, Clark Wissler 19
IV. The American Negro, James Weldon Johnson 29
V. “Old” Immigration 33
A. British Americans, Francis J. Brown 33
B. Irish Americans, A. J. Reilly 43
C. Norwegian Americans, B. /. Hourfe 51
D. Swedish Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 60
E. Danish Americans, A. J. Barnouw 71
F. Dutch Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 82
G. Belgian Americans, Francis J. Brown 90
H. French Americans, Francis J. Brown 96
I. German Americans, A. B. Faust loi
J. Swiss Ameiicms, Joseph S. Roucek 113
yi. “New” Immigration: Slavic States 120
A. Russian' Americans, Yaroslav J. Chyz 120
B. Ukrainian Americans, Yaroslav J. Chyz : 127
C. Bolish Ameiicms, Joseph S. Roucek 135
D. Czechoslovak Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 145
E. Yugoslav Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 158
F. Bulgarian Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 167
* The tenn “America” is used consistently in this volume to include only the United
States; “Americans” includes all who reside within the continental United States
widiout regard to citizen^p status.
Y111
XIV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER page
VIL “New” Immigration: East European States 178
A. Latvian Americans, Joseph S. Roiicek 178
B. Lithuanian Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 184
C- Estonian Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 194
D. Finnish Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 199
E. Austrian Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 209
F. Hungarian Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 213
G. Rumanian Americans, Francis J. Brown 223
VIIL “New” Immigration: South European States 233
A. Albanian Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 233
B. Greek Americans, M. J. Politis 242
C. Italian Americans, Francis J. Brown 257
D. Spanish Americans, Francis J. Brown 270
E. Portuguese Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 276
IX. Jewish Americans, Harry Schneiderman and Julius
B. Mailer 281
X. Asiatic Immigration
A. Syrian Americans, Habid 1 . Katibah 291
B. Turkish Americans, Francis J. Brown 298
C. Armenian Americans, Rouben Gavoor 299
D. Hindu Americans, Elmer Hedin 310
E. Chinese Americans, Joseph S. Roucek 313
F. Jzpzn.ese hmeiiczns, Joseph S. Roucek 325
XL The Americas and Our Territorials
A. Canadian Americans, T. V. Kalijarvi 341
B. Latin Americans, Quincy Guy Burris 346
C. Filipino Americans, Emory S. Bogardus 334
D. Hawaiian Minority Groups, Kum Pui Lai 364
PART III: ACTIVITIES OF MINORITY GROUPS
XII. The Foreign-Language and Negro Press, Joseph
S. Roucek 369
Xni. Foreign-Language Broadcasts, Joseph S. Roucek. . 384
XIV. Fraternal Organizations of Nationality Groups,
Yaroslav J. Chyz 392
XV. National Minorities in Domestic Politics, Joseph
S. Roucek 400
TABLE OF CONTENTS
XV
CHAPTER page
XVI. America’s Minorities and Foreign Politics, Joseph
S. Roucek 415
PART IV: RACIAL AND CULTURAL CONFLICTS AND ■
EDUCATION
XVII. Prejudice and Minority Groups, Everett Ross
Clinchy 431
XVIII. The American Indian and Government, ByroJi
Brophy 438
XIX. The Negro and Racial Conflicts, E. Franklin
Frazier 450
XX. Culture Patterns of Minority Groups, Steavart
G. Cole 462
XXL Second- and Third-Generation Americans, Samuel
Koenig 471
XXII. Minority Groups and Their Communities, Francis
J. Brown 486
XXIII. Education and Minority Peoples, E. George Payne 496
XXIV. Religion and Minority Peoples, Willard Johnson. . 507
XXV. Immigration and Government, Rufus Srnith 515
XXVI. Naturalization in the United States, Marian
Schibsby 524
PART V: TRENDS TOWARD CULTURAL DEMOCRACY
IN AMERICA
XXVII. Our Vanishing Minorities, Maurice R. Davie 540
XXVIII. New Attitudes in Community Relations, Herbert
L. Seamans 552
XXIX. Intercultural Education, Stewart G. Cole 561
XVI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER page
XXX. Changing Attitudes Through Classroom Instruc-
tion — ^An Illustration, Dan Dodson 572
XXXI. Intercultural Education and International Re-
lations, Howard E. Wilson 578
XXXII. Contributions of the American Indian, Clark
Wissler 583
XXXIII. Contributions of the American Negro, Sterling
Brown 588
XXXIV. Contributions of Immigrant Minorities, Francis
J. Brown 616
XXXV. Future Steps in Cultural Democracy, Joseph S.
Roucek 623
APPENDICES
Tables 632
Organizations and Publications 658
Selected Bibliography 660
Index 703
Part I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
The Meaning and Status of Minorities
Feancis J. Brown
T hrough all of recorded history, men have dreamed of a world
in which there would be both complete equality of opportunity
for all and perfect fraternity of all. Yet such a world is still a Utopia
— a world that exists only in the minds of those who. close their
eyes to facts and refuse to face reality.
The one universal characteristic of mankind is variability. Social
organization crystallizes such differences as those of race, religion,
and nationality, and the awareness of differences is lifted from an
individual to a group concept. Each group tends to develop a “we”
or “in-group” feeling with a definite attitude of superiority as to
its own cultural pattern and a feeling of antagonism toward that of
the “they” or “out-group.” It perpetuates its own folkways, exalts
its own culture, fosters its own self-glorification, and seeks to trans-
mit this same attitude, undiminished and even enhanced, to its chil-
dren. Likewise, each group tends to disparage the accomplishments
of those of the out-group, ridicules its culture, and often, as in
Germany during the rise and the death struggle of nazism, seeks
to exterminate it by rigid censorship and by persecution. Thus in
ethnocentrism — ^the superiority of the in-group and the evaluation
of all other groups by reference only to the culture pattern of one’s
own group — ^is found the basis of differentiation between dominant
and minority groups.
The problem of minorities is as old as civilization and as universal
as the social organization of mankind. It is neither new nor is it
peculiarly American. It exists in every nation to the extent that any
gEOup is consciously aware of a feeling of difference between itself
2 MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES
and the majority or dominant group. In a nation with a fairly
homogeneous origin, minorities are based largely on political or
religious differences. In the United States, with approximately 14
per cent of its population of a different race and with more than 30
per cent of its people foreign bom or first generation, differences
of race and nationality are added to those of politics and religion.
The melting pot is only a myth; America will continue to be a
nation of heterogeneous peoples, but a nation richer in its heritage
by the very fact of its variability. The problem is not that of seek-
ing to establish a common mold for aU, even if this were possible,
but rather that of finding ever more effective ways in which each
variant may be increasingly aware of its integral relationship to the
composite pattern of American life.
Although “minorities” is primarily a group term, it poses, in
reality, a problem of individual behavior. That problem exists to
the degree that each individual identifies himself with the culture
pattern of a group, accepts its values as his own, and seeks to retain
and to perpetuate them. This fact of individual behavior provides
both the greatest hope and the most serious difficulty in seeking to
meet the problem. The hope lies in the educability of the individual,
who is the product, limited only by biological and psychological fac-
tors, of his environment. The difficulty lies in the individual’s uncon-
scious acceptance of group values before he recognizes their social
significance. The cultural heritage of the individual and the conscious
processes of education thus are often in conflict. The conflict in fact
goes even deeper, since the individual is subjected to educational
forces in themselves inconsistent. On the one hand are the activities
of those individuals within a minority group who seek to perpetuate
the consciousness of differences in race and nationality; on the other,
are those who seek to minimize or even to utilize such differences
as a basis for the inculcation of a sense of national unity, based on
knowledge and appreciation of all, without reference to race or
nationality.
The task of meeting the problem will be long. Only by continu-
ous, thoughtful, cooperative planning and by the earnest and consistent
effort of all agencies, will mutual appreciation and human understand-
ing characterize the attitude of all Americans and truly create — One
America.
The Meaning of Minorities
The basis for classification of groups into majorities and minorities
is social differentiation; but such classification is extremely difficult.
MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES 3
According to literal use of the terms, such differentiation is based
upon a numerical ratio; but history is replete with illustrations in
which the numerically larger group is dominated by the smaller. We
must go beyond statistics to formulate our definition.
A second possible differentiation is on a purely legalistic basis —
the lawful right of one group to dominate another. While such a
distinction is at times valid, in many instances actual minorities rec-
ognized as such do not exist at all in the legal sense. Our Negro pop-
ulation is guaranteed by constitutional amendment all of the rights
of full citizenship, yet large numbers of Negroes are excluded through
social pressure from the exercise of those rights and in several states
even from the use of the ballot. To a greater or lesser degree, the
same illegal discrimination is shown against many other minority
groups.^
Another aspect of a common legal distinction is on the basis of the
country of birth, with the tacit assumption that only the foreign
born comprise our minorities. Obviously, this is not true. The
American Indian — ^the only true American, who does not trace his
ancestry to those of foreign birth — ^is today a minority group, as is
also the American-born Negro or Oriental.
The definition of minorities, then, must be drawn primarily from a
sociological analysis. Our attitudes are determined less by numerical
ratios or legalistic conceptions than by the constellation of social
processes and their expression in terms of subtle discrimination or of
overt behavior. We are thus dealing with intangibles impossible
of exact definition. However, we shall use the term in the socio-
logical sense: Minorities are the individuals and groups that differ
or are assumed to differ from their dominant social groups and that
have developed, in varying degree, an attitude of mind which gives
them a feehng of greater social security within their own groups
than they have in their relation to the dominant group. The differ-
ences, although varying in degree, are distinguishing characteristics
not only in terms of race, religion, nationality, and state allegiance
but also in the composite cultural pattern. However, such differ-
ences in and of themselves are not sufficient to make a group a minority
without the accompanying attitude of dominance and subservience,
consciously accepted or tacitly assumed.
Both aspects of the problem are constantly in a state of flux. As
will be emphasized again and again in this volume, both integrat-
^For ^ecific illustrations, see Herman Feldman, Racial Factors in American In--
dustry; G. T. Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law; and W. D- Weather-
ford and C. S. Johnson, Race Relations^
4 MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES
ing and disintegrating forces are continually playing upon the cul-
tural patterns of minority groups. Likewise, significant changes
in social attitudes may aggravate or eliminate a minorities problem.
An illustration of the latter is that in times of economic stress a definite
tendency arises to accentuate differences between groups and resent-
ment against particular minorities. Frequently economic competi-
tion, as well as other factors, is transplanted into other more virtuous
arguments against the resented minority. How complicated the prob-
lem is can be demonstrated by the fact that not all members of
the group consciously or definitely promote such attitudes purely
out of self-interest. They are often duped with such slogans as
“America for Americans” and “Nordic Superiority,” which they
accept as the explanation of social problems or social goals. The
attitudes arising from such slogans are then transferred to the minority
group.
Finally, it must be emphasized that we are dealing with irrational
factors, since attitudes are as much if not more the product of inci-
dental association and unreasoned generalization than the result of
consciously planned educational procedures and reasoned judgment.
As Young states,^ in his excellent analysis of this problem:
Racial attitudes, friendly or antagonistic, may be the product of
objective and accurate observations, but they are more likely to be
based on limited and faulty knowledge, distorted by the minds though
which they have been relayed, and by the subjective interpretations of
their possessor. Human experience is limited but personal opinions may
be posited on limited and raise information.
The Changing Status of Minorities
Thus far we have dealt with the larger differentiation between
minority and majority groups. The general principles would be
equally applicable were we ^scussing such groups on any basis of
differentiation, religious, economic, or social. Actually, however,
we shall be concerned only with such classification as is based pri-
marily upon race and nationality. This does not minimize the im-
portance of secondary characteristics such as language, dress, man-
nerisms, and all of the multifarious expressions of the cultural pattern,
for, as will be continually shown, granting all of the exceptions, these
differences tend to run parallel with those of race and nation. The
common bonds create a sense of autonomy that is further strengthened
2 Donald Young, American Minority Feoples, p. n. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1932. Quoted by permission.
MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES 5
for many minority groups by the attitudes of the majority and the
resulting social and economic isolation.
Specific data are presented in the separate chapters dealing with
each minority group. It is necessary here only to summarize briefly
the more basic trends in the changing status of ininority groups.®
The historical account of the arrival of the first minority group —
the early colonists — has been told too frequently to need repetition.
No statistics were kept until 1820. During the next eleven years
approximately 152,000 immigrants came to the United States. As
shown in Table I (page 632) and Figure i, the curve by decades
reveals a consistent increase to 1 860, remains comparatively constant
for forty years, and then reaches its peak for the decile period 1901-
1910. Actually, the great wave of immigration reached its highest
point during the ten years 1905-19 14, during which time the average
annual influx was 1,011,994. From 1920 to 1924, inclusive, the
number averaged more than half a million a year. The restrictive
immigration law and the depression, together with the changed
attitude toward emigration in the countries from which we had
received our largest numbers, has brought a rapid decline in immi-
gration, and the five years prior to the outbreak of World War II
witnessed an emigration of 240,000 in excess of immigration.
It is not the purpose of this volume to analyze these annual fluctu-
ations.^ The specific factors affecting emigration are discussed in
connection with each minority group. It is necessary to emphasize
only two further factors in the changing status of minority groups:
the varying character of the immigration, and the present attitude
toward it. Dr. Edward J. Corsi® described the former as two
successive waves: the first, to approximately 1880, coming largely
from northern and eastern Europe and usually referred to as “old”
immigration; and the second, beginning approximately in 1880 and
with varying intensity reaching its maximum height in 1914, arriving
largely from eastern and southern Europe, and referred to as “new”
immigration. Figure 2 bears out this general statement. Dr. Corsi
told the story of the American who visited a little town in Italy. The
mayor received him with the statement, “I greet you in the name
3 For detailed statistics on immigration and emigration, see publications of the
United States Department of Labor.
^For a detailed analysis of annual fluctuation, see L. G. Brown, l?mmgration;
H. G. Duncan, Immigatidn and Assimilation; M. R. Davie, World Immigation;
Henry P. Fairchild, Immigration; Donald R. Taft, Human Migration; and others.
® Address delivered before the Educational Sociology Club, New York University,
December 2, 1936.
GRAPH SHOWING TOTAL IMMIGRATION BY DECADES,
1820-1943, AND TOTAL EMIGRATION, 1911-1943
1820 1831 1841 1851 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941
1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 I9p0 1920 1920 1930 1940 1943
Figure t
6
GRAPH SHOWING THE RELATIVE NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS BY
DECADES, FROM GEOGRAPHIC AREAS OF ORIGIN, 1820-1943
Figure 2
7
8 MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES
of the five thousand inhabitants of my village, four thousand of
whom are now in your country.” Figure 3 presents this shift in
origin of foreign stock by countries.
The second general factor in the changing status of minority
groups is the changed attitude toward minorities. With the rapid
industrial expansion which came with the recovery from the panic
of 1873, it was apparent that a horde of cheap labor was necessary
to hew our forests, mine our coal and minerals, lay the ribbons of
steel across our far-flung continent, and tend the tireless wheels of
industry. America then became the great melting pot, the haven
of the oppressed, and the escape from war-torn Europe. Agents
traveled through village and country spreading the gospel of freedom
and plenty. Industrialists cooperated with railroad and steamship
companies by paying passage in exchange for the contract labor of
the foreigner — the famous (and infamous) padrone system which
made him a virtual peon of his American employer. Even the mayors
of some of the villages and cities received a fee for each inhabitant
they persuaded to leave for America. Southern Negroes were wel-
comed in the large industrial centers, and the cleverly rationalized
theory was advanced that they were especially immune to the exces-
sive heat of blast furnaces and the stokers hold. Only the Indian
escaped the ravaging hand of our reputedly benevolent industrializa-
tion.
For nearly half a century this need for cheap labor continued, and
America remained the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. How-
ever, a distinct change had already begun. The great forests had
been laid waste. Through the installation of lifts and cranes and
automatic crushers, the number of miners needed to keep raw mate-
rials abreast of consumption reached a stationary level and then began
to decline. In mill and factory, in shop and store, repetitive acts
were transferred from the human hand to the infallible machine.
Even the great horde of laborers who followed the rotation of the
harvest from Texas to Montana through the seasons were replaced
by the combine and the power-driven machinery of the farm.
During this period political philosophy underwent a similar change:
our .assumed benevolent attitude gave way to candid self-interest, the
“greatest social experiment in human history” became the “melting
pot mistake,” and the open door began to swing shut. Through
successive acts, the most important being those of 1882, 1917, 1921,
and 1924, the gates were practically closed and the machinery of
deportation was so established that the visitor at Ellis Island in the
YEAR OF IMMIGRATION OF FOREIGN-BORN WHITE
POPULATION, BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH, IN 1930*
GERMANY
SWEDEN
SWITZERLAND
DENMARK
NORTHERN IRELAND
IRISH FREE STATE ...
NORWAY
CANADA. FRENCH . .
ENGLAND
FRANCE
CANADA. OTHER
THAN FRENCH ...
NETHERLANDS
CZECHOSLOVAKIA . .
AUSTRIA
SCOTLAND
FINLAND
RUSSIA
POLAND ..
LITHUANIA
ITALY ....
HUNGARY . .
RUMANIA ..
YUGOSLAVIA
GREECE ....
■■ ■ ' FlOUlfiE . ' ■ ■ ■
* Relative thickness of the bars represei^ts the volume of immigration from each country.
{Fifteenth Census of the Vmted States, Population: Year of Immigrations of the foreign
Bom, p. 497.)
lo MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES
days before the war found the immigrant room virtually empty
but the detention or deportation rooms crowded, some individuals
returning voluntarily, others because the long arm of the law had
apprehended them for illegal entry. The immediate result of the
shutting off of the supply of labor from Europe was the influx of
Negroes from the South into the northern industrial cities. This
movement declined in the late 1930’s because of the depression and
the oversupply of labor in urban centers but had an unprecedented
rise during the war period of the early 1 940’s.
The details of legislative action are presented in Chapter XXV,
“Immigration and Government.” It is our purpose to indicate here
only the basic social processes operating to mold such legislation. A
glance at Figure 2 will to a large degree explain the motives for the
literacy act of 1917, which required that each immigrant be able to
read a minimum of forty words in any language. Although pre-
sumably applicable to all aliens coming to our shores, this bill was
the objective expression of the growing attitude of discrimination
against the central and southern European, for in it was the tacit
assumption that a larger number of foreigners from this area would
be excluded because of illiteracy than from northern or western
Europe.
In actual practice this type of legislation failed, as was indicated
in the facts presented above, to stem the tide that again set in after
the war. Although the basis of our changed attitude was un-
doubtedly economic, it was camouflaged in a flood of propaganda
against immigrants, and especially against those from southern Europe.
The theory of Nordic superiority was given scientific credence
through analysis of the results of the Army Alpha and Beta tests.®
Race dififerences were “discovered” through the use of a host of
newly devised intelligence tests and the development of the mythical
I. Q. Almost uniformly such studies demonstrated the inferiority
of the “new” immigrant, the Oriental, the Negro, and the American
Indian, and that, in the case of the last two,, there was a high correla-
tion between intelligence and the proportion of white blood.'^
Although such' studies have been largely refuted by equally
scientific analyses,® and although the average layman failed to under-
8 C. C. Brigham, A Study of American Intelligence. Princeton University Press,
1923.
7 For a summary of such studies and an extensive bibliography see Rudolph Pintner,
Intelligence Testing, Chapters XVII, XVIII, and XX. New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1923.
s William C. Bagley, Determinism in Education. Baltimore: Warwick and York,
Inc., 1925*
MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES
II
stand the new scientific jargon of means, percentiles, and coefficients
of correlation, the results gave a flavor of objectivity to what he
subjectively wanted to believe.
Another type of propaganda appeared at the same time. The
results of the Army tests showed a high percentage of illiteracy
among the more recent arrivals to our shores as well as among the
Negroes, especially of the South. This was interpreted as a failure
on the part of these particular minorities to assimilate our culture,
and a general feeling of alarm was aroused which still further strength-
ened the growing antagonism toward them and resulted in the estab-
lishment of the quota laws of 1921 and 1924. The quotas are given
in Table II (page 634), together with the number admitted from 1936
to 1941.
The attitudes demonstrated by the present policy and enhanced by
it may be briefly summarized under three general implications of aU
legislation from 1917 to the present. First, such attitudes are clear
expressions of the growing ethnocentrism of the native-bom popula-
tion. The term “America for Americans” has been raised from the
slogan of a popular newspaper chain to a national policy. The ma-
jority has lifted its hand against all minority groups.
A glance at Table II will reveal abundant evidence of the second
implication — the assumed superiority of the “old” immigration from
northeastern Europe and the consequent assumed inferiority of the
“new” immigrant from eastern and southern Europe. The quota
allotted to the former even in the Act of 1921 was in excess of the
average emigration from those countries during the years 1910 to
1914, while the quota for the latter was less than one fourth of the
average number admitted. The complete exclusion of the Chinese
and Japanese, not by the quota but on the grounds that only white
and Negro native and African stock can be naturalized, is still further
evidence of the attitudes toward certain minority groups. And
finally, the acts clearly show the irrational character of the social
processes with which we must deal in considering the problem of
American minorities.
The war made sharp changes in the flow of immigration and emigra-
tion. Four significant facts are shown by Table IV (page 636).
Japanese emigration rose rapidly during the four years before Pearl
Harbor, from June 30, 1938 to June 30, 1942, a total of 1,800 leaving
in 1941. The number of Germans who left in proportion to those
who arrived from June 30, 1938, to June 30, 1943, was more than four
times that of Italians and larger than that of any other country except
Japan. More women came as immigrant aliens than men, while more
12
MEANING AND STATUS OF MINORITIES
men than women returned to their native country. America again
became the haven of refugees, receiving over 100,000 Jews during
this five-year period — almost ten times the number from any other
country and approximately one half of the total immigration.
To meet the labor shortage of 1942 and 1943, several thousand
laborers were imported from Mexico and Cuba; but the experiment
did not prove successful. Most of them were returned home at the
expense of our government.
The period of postwar adjustment will create a problem new in
its magnitude. Will all of the prisoners of war be returned to their
respective countries.? What of Italians, captured as enemies, but
later citizens of an “allied nation”.? Will they be permitted to remain
in the United States if they request the privilege of doing so? The
answers cannot be predicted, but it may be assumed that the same
forces that have determined prewar policies will to a large degree
shape our national policy in the postwar period.
The problem of American minorities is, then, primarily a problem
of attitudes — of ethnocentrism on the one hand and of prejudice on
the other. While it does have, as will be stressed in succeeding chap-
ters, a basis in fact — ^in differences of culture and in isolation —
the basic element rests in the subtle assumption of the fundamental
character of such differences.
It is this fact that makes a frank analysis of the problem a genuine
challenge to every thoughtful individual. To the degree that the
children in our schools, the young people in our secondary schools
and colleges, and the adult can be led to a sympathetic understanding
of the many factors that have continually played upon our minority
groups, and to a genuine appreciation of the contributions of those
groups to the lives of each of us, to that extent may we supplant
irrational attitudes with reasoned judgment and prejudice with under-
standing.
CHAPTER II
Backgrounds of America s Heterogeneity
Francis J. Brown
I N THE preceding chapter, the problem of America’s minority
groups was painted in broad strokes. If we are to grasp the prob-
lem’s full significance, we must analyze it in some detail.
Table I (page 632) presents the overall picture. During the 124
years in which data have been available, approximately 39,000,000
immigrafits came to America. Of this number, nearly 33,000,000
or 85 per cent came from Europe; the other American countries con-
tributed 4,500,000 or II per cent, Asia a little less than 1,000,000 or
about 3 per cent, and the remainder or 2 per cent came from Africa,
Australia, the Pacific Islands, or unspecified parts of the earth. It is
estimated that of these 39,000,000 who entered the United States jrom
other nations 30,000,000 have remained.^
In Table III (page 636) , we find the total picture broken down still
further. This table indicates that during a period of one hundred
and twenty-one years the largest total was from Germany, with its
peak in 1882. The peak migration from southern Europe was from
Italy, in 1907. The great English and Irish migrations reached their
peaks earlier, that of Irish migration having come in 1851 and of
Great Britain in 1888. The eastern European migration — from
Austria-Hungary and Russia — like that from southern Europe, came
during the early part of this century, with peaks in 1907 and 1913,
respectively. The largest number of Chinese immigrants came in
1882 and of Japanese in 1907. Mexican migration did not become
important numerically until 1924, after the passing of the Oriental
exclusion act. The curbing of Oriental immigration left expanding
agricultural and industrial areas of the Far West in need of a supply
of cheap labor. This need was filled by the nearly half a million
Mexicans who entered the country during the decade ending 1930.
1 S. 'BuMijipson, ?ofulation Trohlems, p. 376. Third edition. New York:
McGraw-HiU Book Company, 1943.
13
14
BACKGROUNDS OF AMERICA’S HETEROGENEITY
Emigration. Another side of the picture must be taken into ac-
count. Although it is important to know the numbers that have
come to America from the nations of the world, our present problem
is also determined by the number who have returned. Only by the
arithmetical process is it possible to procure an accurate appreciation
of the extent to which each nationality group has contributed, nu-
merically, to our heterogenous population. Table IV (page 636)
gives the data.
Unfortunately no emigration statistics were kept before 1908.
Even the data as given by the Immigration and Naturalization Service
are not wholly subject to the subtraction referred to above. The
numbers indicate the country to which the emigrant is returning.
This may or may not be the country from which he came, especially
with the shifting boundary lines which followed the first World War.
Certain generalizations, however, can be made. In proportion to
immigration, the numbers returning are higher for eastern and^ southern
Europe than for western and northern Europe. For example, the
Greeks came in large numbers during the two decades 1901 to 1920.
There were approximately 350,000 of them, but almost half of them,
or 170,000, returned between 1911 and 1930. Conversely, while
nearly 500,000 Irish came during the first two decades of this century,
only 35,000 returned. Mexican emigration, since 1920, has exceeded
immigration, but the reverse is true for Canada.
These data are frequently discussed in later chapters as they are a
measure of the extent to which each group came with the intent of
becoming permanent residents in the new land.
Nationality backgrounds. The most accurate picture of nation-
ality backgrounds of the white population of the United States is
provided by the special analyses made each decade since 1910 by
the Bureau of the Census showing the nation of origin of the white
population. These data® for the year 1920 indicate that about 40
per cent of the white population was of British or North Irish origin,
16 per cent of German origin, and ii per cent of Irish Free State
origin. From these groups were derived two thirds of the popula-
tion. No other country has contributed as much as 5 per cent of
the total population.
A study of the data for 1940 presented in Table V (page 638) reveals
several important facts. Although Germany ranks first in the num-
ber of foreign white stock, it is second in the number who are' foreign
^Recent Social Trends, p. 20. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1932.
BACKGROUNDS OF AMERICA’S HETEROGENEITY 15
born. Italy is second in foreign stock, first in foreign bom. Great
Britain is third in the number of foreign stock with Poland and Russia
following, but both of the latter surpass Great Britain in the number
born abroad. An analysis of the figures on native born of foreign
parentage shows that Germany and Italy (15.9 and 15.5 per cent
respectively) have more than half again the number in this category
of any other nationahty group.
The picture of immigration by nationality groups is thus continually
in flux. The fifty years of immigration shown in Table VI (page
640) indicates these changes even more graphically than does a com-
parison of twenty years. Many factors, economic, religious, social,
and political, determine the course of immigration.
Language distribution. The extent to which these various nativity
groups have failed to blend into our predominant culture pattern is
probably best indicated by language. The 1940 census tabulates the
total white population of the United States by mother tongue.^ Since
1910 the Census Bureau has collected information about mother
tongues, but the tabulation has included only the foreign-bom white
group itself (the 1930 census), or, at the most, the foreign-bom white
and their American-bom children (the 1910 and 1920 censuses).
The 1940 census is the first one that furnishes information not only
for the so-called first and second generations of foreign stock but also
for the third generation and subsequent generations.
The Census Bureau defines mother tongue as the “principal language
spoken in the home of the person in his earliest childhood.” It
classifies the foreign born as first generation; the native bom of foreign
or mixed parentage as the second generation; and the native bom of
native parentage as the “third and subsequent generations.”
Table VII (page 644) shows that English was the mother tongue
of nearly 80 per cent of the total white population in 1940, the propor-
tion being lowest for the first generation (20 per cent) ; in the second
generation almost 53 per cent; and in the third and subsequent gener-
ations, almost 93 per cent. The census thus comments on this no-
table increase; “Since the proportion of immigrants from English-
speaking countries has been declining for many decades, it would
appear that immigrants of a foreign mother tongue are less inclined
than formerly to use it in their homes and thus to teach it to their
children.”
Although the German mother tongue was the next largest in 1940,
^Mother Tongue of the White Population: 1940, “U. S. Census, Series P-15,”
No. 4, September 22, 1942.
1 6 BACKGROUNDS OF AMERICA’S HETEROGENEITY
numbering 4,949,780 (about 4 per cent) of the total white popula-
tion, it seems very small in comparison with the English-speaking one.
Among those of Spanish mother tongue nearly two fifths, and among
those of French mother tongue over one tliird, were of the third
and subsequent generations.^
Mother-tongue statistics taken by themselves are interesting and
significant, and so are statistics by country of birth; when combined,
they are infinitely more interesting and significant. Mother tongue
is in most cases the same as the language usually spoken in the country
of birth, but not in all cases. The situation in this respect varies
widely from country to country. For example, 97.4 per cent of the
foreign-bom white persons having Norwegian as mother tongue gave
Norway as the country of their parents’ birth; on the other hand,
only 22.2 per cent of the foreign-bom white persons having French
mother tongue said that France was the country of their parents’
birth. To look at the matter from another angle, 1,451,160 of the
foreign-bom white persons in the United States said that Russia was
the country of birth of their parents, but only 392,480 of them said
that Russian was their mother tongue. Yiddish was the mother
tongue of a large proportion of the persons who came here from
Russia, as was true also, though to a much less extent, of Germans.
To get a realistic picture of the origins of the foreign group it is neces-
sary to know not only in what country they or their parents were
bom but also to what “race” or “people” they belong, as evidenced
by their mother tongue.
Median age. A similar but less accurate indication of the recency
of immigration are data on the median age of our foreign white stock.
The 1940 census shows the foreign groups from northern Europe to
be older on the average by nearly twenty years than those from eastern
and southern Europe.
Naturalization. A measure of assimilation is the percentage of each
foreign group who have become citizens of the United States. In the
1940 census, those from the Scandinavian countries led the list,
closely followed by Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, and Ireland.
Mexico is by far the lowest, with five other countries between 50 and
60 per cent naturalized. This problem will be discussed in more
detail in Chapter XXVI. (See Table XXI, page 657.)
Trends in foreign born. From the standpoint of nativity, America
has not yet approached homogeneity in the composition of its popu-
4 For a more detailed analysis see the Interpreter Releases, No. 49 (October 19,
1942), XX, No. 22 (May 27, 1943), and XIX, No. 55 (December ii, 1942).
BACKGROUNDS OF AMERICA’S HETEROGENEITY 17
lation. There is, however, a significant trend in this direction. In
1940, less than 11,500,000 were foreign-born whites, as compared
with almost 14,000,000 only one decade earlier. These figures are
even more significant when reduced to percentages. The foreign
bom constituted 8.7 per cent of the white population in 1940, whereas
it made up 1 1 .4 per cent ten years before.
This trend has influenced the nature of our present problem. With
each passing year the number of foreign bom is decreasing. There is
no longer the need to adjust a foreign group to American life. The
question which we now face as a nation is the extent to which the
children and grandchildren retain the cultural heritage of their fore-
bears and at the the same time are integrated into the total pattern
of American life.
Racial distribution. Thus far we have dealt only with nationality
groups; but America’s population differences are both national and
racial. The principal non-white race is, of course, the American
Negro, comprising, in 1940, 9.73 per cent of the total population of
the United States. All other races combined make up less than one
half of one per cent. The American Indian comprises half of this
total and is increasing more rapidly than any other group. (See
Table VIII, page 645.)
Religion. One of the marked effects of nationality derivation on
ideologies and behavior patterns is the field of religious belief. The
1936 census of religious bodies shows that approximately 56,000,000
persons were affiliated with religious bodies. Of these, some 3 1 ,000,-
000 were Protestants, 20,000,000 Catholics, and 4,600,000 Jews. In
all, the church population was broken up into 256 denominations,
each possessing some distinctive characteristic.
This picture of heterogeneity would be incomplete without some
mention of the considerable number of refugees who have come to
this country since the rise of the intolerant totalitarian systems. It is
extremely difficult to provide accurate figures. The reports of the
United States Immigration Service . make no distinction between
refugees and other immigrants; furthermore, many refugees have
entered this country on the visas obtained in Canada or South America,
and many are allowed to come in as “visitors,” “professors,” “priests,”
“students,” and similar classifications which do not include them in
the regular quota system.®
“ Francis J. Bro-wn, Ed., “Refugees,” Annals, American Academy of Political and
Social Science. Vol. 203, May 1939.
1 8 BACKGROUNDS OF AMERICA’S HETEROGENEITY
The Weakness of All Census Data
All these figures are suggestive rather than conclusive. For, con-
trary to the popular conception that there is such a thing as a
“German” vote or mentahty, there are no Germans, Czechoslovaks,
Poles, or other minority groups living in America, that are charac-
terized by definite and singular characteristics applicable to each
group member. It is impossible to speak about such minorities in
terms of their collective names without noting that each cluster is
subdivided into numerous socially stratified classes and castes, disinte-
grated and frequently in conflict with one another in terms of their
differences. This fact is very important to bear in mind, as pointed
out by Donald Young; ®
The human tendency to classify strangers by traits which distinguish
them most strikingly has made for the neglect of the complicated class
stratification which exists within each minority, no matter how lowly its
position on the national scale. Whatever the white man’s view, Negroes
are not just Negroes to each other; a multitude of status lines crisscrosses
colored social relationships, marking distinctions which are no less im-
portant humanly and scientifically than those to be found in white Boston
or Baltimore. Similarly, Mexicans are not just Mexicans to each other,
nor Jews just Jews, Japanese just Japanese, French Canadians just French
Canadians, Italians just Italians.
This point will become more than obvious in the subsequent pages
of this volume. When, therefore, we use the collective term in
describing various minorities, we deal with the tendencies or attitudes
in such groups rather than with the all-pervading mentalities of each
respective group.
“Donald Young, Research Memorandum on Minority Peoples in the Depression,
p. 25. New York: Social Science Research Council, Bulletin 31, 1937.
Part II
OUR MINORITY PEOPLES
CHAPTER III
The American Indian
Clark Wissler
T he AMERICAN INDIAN in our national population has a
unique history. All the other minority groups migrated here
from the old world since 1492, whereas the Indian was at that time
the sole inhabitant. He possessed the land by virtue of long occu-
pation but was gradually crowded out, seized, and made an unwilling
subject to the European intruders. He played a part in the colonial
wars between the Spanish, French, English, and Dutch colonials,
according to local circumstances. Not infrequently Indians fought
on both sides, because their tribes were usually at war with each other
and easily induced to give temporary allegiance to the colonial
nationals not immediately pressing upon their individual frontiers.
After the Revolutionary War, the United States became their chief
enemy, though even then tribes temporarily at peace could be hired
to fight with the soldiers of the United States against such tribes as
were formally at war with that nation.
When the original thirteen colonies set up an independent govern-
ment, they inherited the Indian minority problem from the mother
country. In the main, the former policies of the English government
were followed at the outset. The Dutch seem to be credited with
having led in establishing the procedures adopted by England. The
colonies of the Dutch, English, and French were established as business
corporations operating under charters issued by their respective gov-
ernments. Thus the Dutch corporation settling in New York ex-
pected its main profits for a time to be derived from trade with the
Indians. They assumed that the land was really owned by the
Indians and consistently secured titles to such lands as they needed by
19
20
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
purchase. They went further in recognizing the several tribes as
independent states with which they made treaties. It mattered little
that the Indians rarely understood what was happening when they
signed a contract to sell portions of their lands, because the colonists
considered these contracts legal and binding and were powerful
enough to defend the titles to lands thus acquired.
Prior to the Revolution, the leaders of the colonial governments and
the Crown evolved a policy of permitting each Indian tribe to retain
a relatively small area of its lands for permanent residence. This
area was called “a reservation,” because it was not subject to coloniza-
tion or sale, but was guaranteed in perpetuity by treaty with the tribal
government as exclusively reserved for the tribe’s own residential
occupation and use. W’ashington’s administration naturally accepted
this policy. The concept of the tribe as a nation continued until
Grant’s time, when Congress ruled that all Indians were individually
subjects of the United States, but still recognized the several tribes
as entities with whom contracts could be made. Their prior rights to
definite areas of land were taken for granted and the practice con-
tinued of respecting tribal ownership as vested in equal per capita
shares in the same.^
Another important and unique feature of Indian minority policy
is that the government recognizes hereditary tribal groups as owning
tracts of land communally, in that ail their decendants are equal per
capita owners of the lands and income derived from the same.
Trends in current policies are toward the formal incorporation of
each tribe as owner of its residual lands and accumulated capital, under
a form of national trusteeship. All other minorities are looked upon
as of common national ancestry but received as individuals seeldng
citizenship.
This policy is consistent with recent legislation authorizing a form
of restricted self-government for Indian corporations according to
which members of the tribe elect a body of directors who regulate the
financial and social affairs of the tribe or the corporation. Now that
many tribes are increasing in number and inherit their right to indi-
vidual participation in their corporation and community governments,
it remains to be seen what the future may bring forth. Already, un-
der the guiding hand of the government, new lands are being pur-
chased and added to certain reservations no longer large enough to
1 Walter H. Mohr, Federal Indian Relations 1933; Aime H. Abel,
Proposals for an Indian State of the JJnion^ American Historical Association Report,
pp. 89-102, 1907.
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
21
support the tribal population. Where this may lead in the distant
future is not dear. Indians are now increasing in number faster than
any other minority in our population. The Navaho, for example, to
provide for their improving economy, need more land for raising
their livestock, thus presenting a group of local problems in Arizona
and New Mexico, which sooner or later will demand just solutions.
So far no other minority group in our nation enjoys so unique a legal
and social status.
The government has liberalized its policy respecting language, per-
mitting the printing of textbooks in certain native tribal languages
and the giving of instruction in the same. However, English is
taught in Indian schools also. This experiment in dual language
instruction is now under way in the schools for Navaho Indians and
will be extended to the tribes who speak the Dakota language. When
a compact community of 50,000 inhabitants retains a distinct language,
its cultures and institutions seem fair to become stabilized and to
persist for a long time. Most of the tribes surviving still speak their
own languages in their homes and at official conferences, but many
become bilingual, speaking in addition English or Spanish, according
to location. Under such conditions it is not to be expected that the
native speech will soon be extinct; rather it will become even more
stabilized, especially where it is used in school instruction. When
large groups of Indians speak, read, and write their own languages
and reside in fixed geographical areas, they have something in common
with other foreign-language groups, even though they are unique
in their legalized communal ownership of land and capital.
Indian Population
The number of Indians on the rolls of the United States Department
of Indian Affairs in 1943 was reported as 401,384, including Alaska.
It was estimated that the total Indian population was approximately
430,000. It is thus apparent that the Indians do not constitute one
of the major minorities such as the Italians, Scandinavians, Greeks,
and so on, but on the other hand do greatly outnumber many others
fisted in this volume, for example, Turks, Syrians, and Hindus. The
data on living Indians in the United States census usually record fewer
Indians than those reported by the United States Indian Service.
Thpre are several causes for this difference: because of mixture of
In dian and white blood, many white hybrids appear in the census
as white, due to their small degree of Indian blood, whereas the rolls
of the In dian service count them because they are entitled to shares
22
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
in Indian tribal lands and incomes. Again, in states where there are
mixtures of Negro and Indian the custom is to list all as Negro.
Further, the Indian service registers all persons of Indian descent
whether they live on their tribal reservation or not, whereas many
mixed-blood Indians scattered at random are enumerated in the census
as white or Negro. Thus, it seems probable that the main cause of
discrepancy between the census and the reservation rolls lies in the
classification of mixed bloods.
The question is often asked as to the number of full-bloods now
living. As already pointed out, the difficulty in classification, espe-
cially of the decendants of those who marry back with full-bloods,
dooms any answer which might be given to the status of an estimate.
The usual statement is that at least one-half of our Indians are of mixed
blood. Mixed marriages seem to be declining, however, and since
many mixed bloods marry full-bloods, the Indian strains are reassert-
ing themselves. On the other hand, intertribal marriages are increas-
ing, so that although the tribes are still mainly inbreeding, the tend-
ency toward leveling down tribal types is growing.
The number of Indians in the United States in 1492 is still a con-
troversial question. The conservative estimates are about 1,000,000,
or roughly 0.33 per square mile. Since most of our Indian tribes
were primarily hunters and but a few of them agriculturalists, some
critics regard this estimate as too high. The denser populations were
distributed along the Atlantic coast plane, in the Gulf states. New
Mexico, Arizona, and the Columbia River area.^ With European
contact, the stress of white domination, war, and new European dis-
eases took heavy toll, the lowest point in numbers being reached about
1900. Since that time the number of Indians has been increasing at
an accelerating rate, due to the falling death rate among children and
the constancy of a birth rate equal to that of any other minority.
Students of populations know that several factors may modify the
growth of numbers: (a) changes in the birth rate, (b) changes in the
total death rate, (c) changes in the age-at-death frequencies, and
(d) changes in sex ratios. It is conceivable that any one of these
could remain constant while the others changed. Hence, a knowl-
edge of the total death rate does not tell us much about what is hap-
pening to the age and sex composition of our Indian population.
One of the first questions may be as to the sex ratio in the total
Indian population. Although early observations of explorers and
2 A. L. Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, pp. 131-
172.
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
23
fur traders indicated an excess of females, the data for 1934 show the
reverse to be true today. This change in sex ratio suggests that
reservation life, or white contact, is favorable to the survival of males,
whereas in earlier times life was far more favorable to females.
Further, analysis of Indian data suggests that a hunting life, plus war
excursions, presented extra hazards to males and that white contact
gradually reduced these hazards, so that at present the total ratio of
males and females, among Indians in the United States, is similar to
that among our white population.
The age distribution, or age profile, of a population changes prob-
ably in unison with trends in mode of life. Because of the change to
reservation life, there was an increase in children surviving through
the first fifteen years of life, which means that minors have increased,
relatively, under white contact. The increase would have been
greater, if tuberculosis, an adolescent disease, had not caused a slight
decline in the number of minors surviving for the ages 16-20. It is
further observed that an increasing number of adults survive. So, as
may be suspected, the gross death rate rose sharply when Indians were
first placed upon reservations, then in a few years began to decline
and is still declining. The birth rate, on the other hand, remained
high; hence the observed recent increase in Indian populations is due
chiefly to the falling death rates, in turn due to increasingly effective
social and economic adjustments to white culture.
Looking toward the future, we may expect the Indian death rate
to fall until it approximates the death rate for whites living under
similar conditions. Then if the Indian birth rate remains high, there
will be a rapid increase in Indian population. Further, since the
Indians possess social solidarity and each tribe has its own language,
they may hold their own for a long time. However, all promise
to become Americanized in mode of life, in economic and social
customs.
Acculturation
The adjustment of a minority group to a larger dominating culture
group is defined as acculturation. As such, it is one type of resultant
in culture impact. The culture history of the Indian is an example
of acculturation as so defined.® At first each tribe made its contact
through trade and was thereby stimulated to greater production of
3 Margaret Meadj The Changing Culture of an Indian Tribe; Melceel, Scudder,
“A Discussion of Cultural Change,” American Anthropologist, N. S.; and Clark
Wissler, An Introduction to Social Anthropology.
24 THE AMERICAN INDIAN
goods and inducted into a higher standard of living. As competition
became keener, the weaker tribes were crushed. But eventually each
surviving tribe in turn was engulfed in white settlements, then placed
upon a reservation and expected to live like white people. Yet ad-
justment to white culture began at early contact, and the cultures of
the Indians changed with each advance in the intimacy of the con-
tact. Through this early contact the Indians acquired the horse,
metal tools, firearms, kettles, cloth, and so on. European clothing
became common, and now that axes were available, better houses were
constructed and more comfortably furnished. The use of liquor
became common. Many Indians became bilingual, nominal Chris-
tians, and learned a great deal about white culture. Some customs
that the whites frowned upon were given up or at least kept in the
background. Marriage of Indian women and white men spread a
knowledge of white folkways. Almost every Indian had observed
white people in their daily occupations and knew how they lived.
Once having reached the reservation stage, the leaders of each tribe
knew that they were doomed to live,' if self-sustaining, like their
rural white neighbors; and in many cases they made the initial effort
in that direction. There were failure, discouragement, incompetence,
trickery, and tragedy, the responsibility for which rested upon both
Indian and white. All Indians were expected to farm; but in many
cases their lands were ill adapted to agriculture. Even when crops
were planted, drought, hail, insects, and other misfortunes discouraged
the Indian, because, unhke the white man, he had no folk experience
behind him to give him faith in the future and encourage him to expect
ultimate success. His philosophy of life led him to expect that “the
powers” would protect him from these calamities; but, if they did not
protect him, he accepted such failure as evidence that they disap-
proved of what he had done, and so there was no use in persisting.
Nevertheless the younger generation has overcome many of these
handicaps, and if one visits an average reservation today, he will find
many Indian families living in good houses, dressed according to
modem rural white standards, using automobiles, radios, and the like.
Most of the young people are able to write and read English. In
the southwestern part of the United States many Indians speak
English and Spanish in addition to their own language.
Yet these Indians are not identical in culmre with their white neigh-
bors of old American stock. Their traditions are different. Se-
cretly, maybe, but surely, they consider themselves intrinsically better
than their white neighbors, or at least that the culture of their ancestors
THE AMERICAN INDIAN 25
was a far better one than that of the white man. At the same time
many of them are doing their best to acquire the economic techniques
of their white neighbors and to profit thereby. They desire all the
conveniences of contemporary life, though they are not in sympathy
with it.
Today the touring white public looks upon the Indian as a diver-
sion and encourages him to exploit his past for profit. At many
places where tourists gather, the Indian displays his handwork, usually
honestly, but occasionally fraudulently, offering for sale machine and
factory-made imitations. Along the Great Lakes, in eastern Canada,
and almost everywhere west of the Mississippi where Indian reserva-
tions are found, Indian women and men frequent railway stations and
the main highways, dressed in modern conventional Indian styles,
offering Indian goods for sale. Also, at camps and other central
locations, costumed Indians sing and dance, and afterward solicit tips.
The actual profits resulting from all these efforts are pitiably small.
For example, several thousand Navaho women weave blankets at home,
but the average return they get is less than five cents an hour. On
the other hand, it is contended that these women enjoy weaving and
thereby develop their aesthetic appreciation to their betterment. A
group of pubhc-spirited persons is now interested in the development
of Indian crafts, seeking to stimulate a larger market for Indian-made
goods and, of course, a higher price. This may be possible, but there
are many economic and social pitfalls to be avoided. The white
tourist attitude encourages the Indian to take a place in our midst
which is somewhat like that of the gypsy of Europe in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. This is not a desirable solution to the Indian
problem. How to change this attitude on the part of the interested
public and still maintain a market for Indian crafts, the interest in
which is certain to be erratic and subject to violent style fluctuations,
is puzzling.
Perhaps the outstanding problem in the present system of reser-
vation management is that of keeping the Indian from becoming more
and more dependent. If he should be turned loose in the world, his
lack of experience would quickly send him to the bread line. Thus,
the net result would be nil, and the burden would be shifted from
federal to local governmental agencies. Forceably to put Indian
families upon their own and to scatter them among the white popu-
lation at large would be to break up their relationship ties and separate
them from their friends. The effect of this upon their mental and
emdtional life might be detrimental. Just how to avoid the violent
26
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
final wrench in turning the Indian loose is not clear. No one has as
yet proposed a procedure which promises gradually to induct the
Indian from economic dependence to independence. And so he is
in a kind of vicious circle, completely conditioned to a dependent
existence and at the same time taught to desire all the benefits accruing
to a successful independent citizen.
Present Conditions of Indian Tribes
All Indians are legally citizens of the United States, entitled to
vote according to the laws of the states in which they reside. They
may own real estate and personal property subject to common law,
but their tribal or reserved lands are held in trust for them by the
federal government and so are not subject to state and county taxa-
tion or to most procedures of state government. Each tribe of Indians
is claimant to the right of domicile on the lands reserved for its
members and their descendants, and the federal government considers
itself committed to their schooling, medical care, discipline, and gen-
eral welfare. Churches of various denominations may support mis-
sions and private schools for Indians under permits from the govern-
ment, though at present many congregations of Indians support their
churches as churches are supported among the population at large.
An In dian reservation, or agency, is in charge of an agent, or super-
intendent, with an administrative staff varying in size according to
the number of Indians and area of the reservation. The agent is
directly responsible to the United States Indian Service, under the
Department of the Interior. He administers the reservation accord-
ing to the regulations established by the Indian Service and special
legislation by Congress.
AU reservation Indians are in the main rural populations, engaged
in food production according to local conditions. Those upon the
seacoast and inland waterways may be in part fishermen, but the
aboriginal economy of hunting and foraging has disappeared from all
reservations, except in parts of Alaska. Livestock production has
been substituted, coordinated with agriculture. The types of housing
are approaching national styles in architecture, though often upon a
low level of adequacy. During seasons of mild weather, many
families may leave their cabins and cottages for temporary shelter of
tents or other aboriginal types of housing; but they return to their
permanent homes in unfavorable weather. Most Indians prefer an
outdoor camping mode of life to the indoor mode characteristic of
our nation. In the vicinity of reservations they furnish a mobile
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
27
temporary source of farm and outdoor labor, with their families
occupying camps of their own construction. They prefer such
activities as gathering potatoes, picking fruit, harvesting beets, and so
on, in which the whole family young and old can participate. At
such times the traditional form of tribal society is in full function.
Under war conditions, many young Indian men and women found
work and regular housing in towns where war goods were produced,
expecting to return eventually to homes on their respective reserva-
tions. Practically every registered reservation Indian looks forward
to a normal family life upon his reservation. The security and advan-
tage of his right to reside upon the reservation is the obvious deterrent
to the absorption of the In^an into our national life and the losing of
his identity as a minority.
The Indian Reorganization Act
In 1934, congressional action, in the form of the Wheeler-Howard
Bill, instituted a new policy in the control of Indian minorities. The
intent was to legalize steps to accomplish the following: (a) conserve
the property now held in trust for the several tribes, (b) allow the
tribe to manage its own affairs in a legal manner, (c) evolve a mode
of living consistent with our national economy. The act was not
forced upon the Indians, but each reservation unit was given the right
to vote on the acceptance of jurisdiction under the act or to proceed
under the old form of reservation management. A considerable
number refused to accept the act, so that only a majority of our
Indian minorities are living under this new policy. However, the
policy of the government in administrating Indian affairs is tempered
by the ideal objectives inherent in the act as summarized above.
When a reservation unit accepts the act, a charter or constitution
is drawn up and ratified, the necessary elections are held to provide
officers and directors, and the act is set in operation under govern-
ment guidance. It is expected that each reservation unit territorially
and otherwise will eventually function under local state governments'
and be self-supporting as are incorporated communities. The policy
is still in its experimental stage, but in most instances it has demon-
strated that it is feasible and economically sound. It is expected that
from time to time it will be necessary to revise the charters and con-
stitutions to meet new conditions. One of the chief responsibilities
delegated to the councils, as they are called, is the administration of a
revolving loan fund from which loans can be made to assist individual
members to finance crops or herds of livestock and to finance general
28
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
tribal enterprises as irrigation, conservation, building up tribal herds of
livestock, and so on.
In 1943 it was reported that 192 tribes had accepted the act, of
which 88 had adopted constitutions and by-laws and 68 had received
their articles of incorporation and were operating under the same.
Some 2 80 tribes are recognized as living under some 1 60 reservations,
but the number of units under which these tribes may incorporate
is undetermined.^
The official reports issued by the Department of Indian Affairs
claim that great progress has been made in raising the incomes of
tribal members. The total production of food, livestock, farm prod-
ucts, and so on, has increased encouragingly. The value of food
products produced in 1943 was estimated as $21,000,000, and live-
stock to the value of $12,000,000 was marketed. Efforts were made
to encourage the storing of food by families in cans, by drying, and in
root cellars, the results of which have been surprisingly successful.
That many Indians are approaching white standards of thrift is
indicated by the purchase of government bonds to the amount of
several million dollars. The tribal councils have shown initial skill
in handling cooperative enterprise, not only in livestock production
but in lumbering on their own lands, raising sugar beets, mineral
production, and so on. Some councils have invested their profits in
the purchase of additional land to enlarge their reservations. Unless
the government arbitrarily changes its present policy, or the state
governments unduly interfere with the economic development of
these incorporated Indian communities, Indians seem destined to
become self-supporting and efficient citizens.
The record of the Indians in World War II was excellent. Since
they are citizens, they were subject to draft; but the number of
volunteers was so great that the representation of this minority in our
armed forces was relatively high. Over 18,000 were inducted into
the service, notwithstanding many rejections because the applicants
were unable to read simple English. Special schooling was provided,
and many young Indians strove to quahfy. The combat record of
Indians was exceptionally good, a number having been decorated for
valor.
‘ G. D. Lindquist, The Red Man in the United States, p. 37, 1943.
CHAPTER IV
The American Negro
James Weldon Johnson
Revised by Francis J. Brown
P ARADOXICAL as it may seem, the Negro goes as far back in the
history of the new world as any of the old-world groups. Indeed,
there are theories that African Negroes crossed the Atlantic at its
narrowest point, landed on the South American continent, and
influenced Indian civilization before the arrival of the white man.
These theories have been set forth in great detail by Professor Leo
Wiener, formerly of Harvard University.
Whether the finds of Wiener be regarded as matters of fact or of
conjecture, data exist which show that Negroes had a part in the ac-
cepted discovery of America and its exploration. There are some
grounds for believing that the pilot of Columbus’s flagship on the first
voyage and of the Nina on the third voyage was a Negro. He was
Pietro (or Pedro or Pero) Alonzo. In the “Libretto” ( 1 504) there are
a number of references to him as “Alonzo, the Negro.” Once he is
referred to as “Alonz, Negro cornpanion of the Admiral.” ^ Similar
references are made in other early reports of the voyages of discovery.
Whatever may be the fact concerning Alonzo’s race (Thacher states
that the word “Negro” as used in the “Libretto,” which became cur-
rent in following publications, was in the first instance the result of
a typographical error), it is known that Negroes were numerous in
Portugal and Spain long before Columbus sailed, and that many of
them followed the sea; so it is not beyond likehhood that Negroes
were among the crews of the three voyages.
However that may be, authentic history attests the fact that there
were Negroes with Balboa, Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto, and with the
other great explorers. One of the survivors of the ill-fated expedi-
tion led by De Narvaez was a Negro called Estevanico. He was
iSee original and translation of the “Libretto,” John Boyd Thacher, Columbus,
VoL 2, 457-514. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904.
29
30
THE AMERICAN NEGRO
later a member of the expedition that explored the Rio Grande, and
was the guide of the expedition that resulted in the discovery of what
is now Arizona and New Mexico. The writings of the explorers
and of the authoritative historians of the period contain numerous
interesting and often amazing references to Negroes.
But the history of the Negro in the United States begins definitely
with the landing of twenty Airicans at Jamestown, Virginia, in
August, 1619, It is worth noting that this landing at Jamestown
took place more than a year before the Pilgrim Fathers set foot on
Plymouth Rock. These twenty Africans were landed from a Dutch
vessel and purchased by the white settlers, who made indentured serv-
ants of them. The status of these first Negroes was practically the
same as that of the white indentured servants who had preceded them.
With the increase of the number of Negroes in Virginia and the other
colonies, and as a result of the economic factor at work, there was
a transition in this status from indenture to slavery. The economic
factors were the basic forces in establishing, spreading, and maintain-
ing the institution of slavery. According to the census of 1790,
there was a total number of 757,181 Negroes in the United States,
of which 59,558 were free. At the outbreak of the Civil War the
total Negro population of the United States amounted to 4,441,830,
of which number 488,070 were free. Out of the Civil War came
the emancipation of the slave.
The continued growth of the Negro population is shown in Table
IX (page 645 ) . By 1 900, the number had doubled and was 8,8 3 3,994.
In each decade, the Negro population has increased approximately one
million, and, in 1940, was 12,865,511.
Even more significant than the gross figure is the relation of
Negroes to the total population. The percentage which the Negro
population bears to the total population is also given in Table IX.
In 1870 the percentage was 12.7. It increased shghtly and in 1880
was 1 3.1 per cent, probably due to more accurate census data than
because of any unusual increase. From 1880 to 1930, the percentage
gradually but persistently declined to 9.69. This decrease in relation
to the white population occurred during the period when the white
population was being increased by an average net immigration (in
excess of emigration) of approximately 3,000,000 each decade. The
effect of immigration upon the ratio is further evidenced by the fact
that during the ten years from 1931 to 1940 in which the increase
in white population due to net immigration was but 70,000, the ratio
of Negroes to whites reversed its trend. It increased to 9.7 7 per cent.
THE AMERICAN NEGRO
31
In planning for the future, these facts become important, for thej^
indicate not only an absolute increase in Negro population, but a
gradual stepping up of its percentage to the total population.
Another significant fact is the distribution of Negro population.
While a few Negroes had migrated to northern states prior to 1870,
the number was small and, for the most part, they were escaped
slaves. Beginning about 1875, the numbers gradually increased,
fluctuating with the accessibility of employment in the North, espe-
cially in the cities. The migration reached a previously unprece-
dented peak during and immediately following World War I, con-
tinued high even during the depression, and advanced to a new peak
at the time of World War II. A comparison of population in selected
states, over the decade 1930-1940 only, is presented in Table X (page
645).
Several facts are evident from a study of this table. Only one of
the seven states in the Deep South, Kentucky, has shown a decrease
in Negro population within the decade 1930-1940. The industrial
states of the North have had an increase in their Negro population in
approximately the same proportion. The agricultural states, espe-
cially those having no large manufacturing centers, have shown httle
increase, and in Iowa, for example, there has been a decrease in
Negro population.
Comparative data over a larger span of years to include both world
wars would have shown a larger proportion of increase in the indus-
trial North. If a comparison were made of population in cities, the
trend toward urbanization would be even more pronounced.
In this twofold movement of population — ^to the northern states
and to urban communities — ^he many of the problems of economic
and social adjustment comparable in many respects with the problems
faced by the recent immigrant minorities.
It is evident, then, that for more chan three hundred years the
Negro has lived in the United States and has been an element of in-
creasing consequence. Today the Negro- American population,
numerically at least, constitutes the most important of aU. American
minority groups.
If we turn to even a brief statement of the social and economic
factors, it becomes necessary at once to define more closely Negro
Americans as a minority group. First, they have long been identified
with the United States and cannot now be regarded in any sense as
“immigrants”; and second, although they are more sharply separated
from the main body than is any other minority group, they are not
32
THE AMERICAN NEGRO
to be classified as “aliens.” They are essentially American, They
are one with the main body in language, in religion, in customs, and
in general concepts. Their minority status is therefore unique. For
although there is this oneness at these vital points, the minority status
of Negro Americans involves the greatest separateness from the main
body and the least susceptibility to being changed. In this anomalous
condition lies the fundamental distinction between Negro Americans
and other American minority groups. The latter, no matter what
their historical, cultural, or religious particularities, have the oppor-
tunity and privilege of rapidly narrowing the gap between them and
the main body. The practical closing of the gap between the main
body and almost all of the earlier white immigrant groups has been
achieved.
A study of the Negro-American minority group will have little
to do with distinctiveness in social, political, cultural,* and religious
ideas, but will find a wide field in the duality of the system under
which the Negro works separately along lines parallel to the basic
national pattern. The problems resulting from this dual system of
culture and this group’s significant contributions to American life will
be discussed in later chapters.
CHAPTER V
"'Old’’ Immigration
A. BRITISH AMERICANS
Francis J. Brown
T he PREPONDERANT influence of our British origins is every-
where apparent — ^in our language, our government, our social or-
ganizations, our impHcit faith in the individual, and our value of the
freedoms for which we willingly stake life itself. The dominance
of our British hetitage is forcefully demonstrated in the data given in
an earlier chapter, which indicated that other languages are scarcely
spoken among third and subsequent generations.
Although we fuUy acknowledge the contributions of the British
to American life, it would be a gross misstatement to imply that our
present culture is British. Even before the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, the children and grandchildren of our Pilgrim Fathers had
become American. New arrivals, even from the homeland, were
looked upon as, and became in fact, immigrants. Although the
English shaped the molds into which the life of our country was first
poured, the product differed markedly and, over the years, became
a composite pattern, a component of many cultures, and thus really
American.
No records were kept of these early arrivals, but census reports
from 1820 to 1940 show a total of 4,264,728 immigrants from Great
Britain divided as follows: from England 2,650,298; Scotland 734,191;
Wales 86,465; not specified, 793,774.
ENGLISH
In the early days of colonization, the larger number of new arrivals
came directly from England. A combination of pohtical, social,
and economic causes drove them to America. They transplanted, or
attempted to transplant, the Enghsh institutions in the new world.
Thus the foundation of American culture was laid by the English
people, although it must be emphasized that from the beginning it
34
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
was apparent that transplanting was bound to be unsuccessful just
because the new world was new. Only adaptation could save the
form and spirit of things English. That very adaptation led ulti-
mately, of course, away from England. Nevertheless, a new order
was slowly shaped, and its beginnings became more apparent with the
continued immigration of the late seventeenth century.
These British immigrants represented at least two grades of society
that differed widely from each ocher. The Pilgrims and Puritans of
New England were the yeomen, the merchants, the manufacturers,
skilled in industry. The southern planters sprang from a class of
■si milar standing. Below both these classes were the indentured serv-
ants, the majority of whom were brought to this country through
the advertisements of shipowners and landowners or were forcibly
captured and transported for crimes or pauperism.^
The age was a cruel, undemocratic, and intolerant one in England,
and it was hardly better in the colonies, even though religious freedom
erisited in Rhode Island and, to a degree, in Maryland. Yet among
the rascals and scalawags who appeared in every colony, along with
the more idealistic and often intolerant leaders, were prominent men
who, for their general abilities, their idealism, sometimes their very
impracticability, were lovable and admirable. Both of these elements
laid the foundation of the United States; took part in a dramatic
experiment the like of which the world had up to then never seen.®
Even during this early period, our social conflicts, the products of
immigration, began. During the colonial period hostility to immi-
gration was apparent, and the “old” colonists regarded immigrants in
some cases as “foreigners.”® There were differences in religion,
language, and culture traits, intensified by objections to the pauper and
criminal elements. The colonial assemblies were almost entirely in the
hands of the Enghsh, and they were inchned to look down upon other
ethnic and culttiral groups as inferior. The situation was complicated
by the rehgious elements. Anglicans in the South and in New York,
Puritans in New England, and Quakers in Pennsylvania were anxious
to keep not only political but also rehgious and ethnic control. Sec-
tarian differences were magnified. “Religious intolerance and reh-
gious ethnocentrism were the spirit of the rime, despite the fact that
1 J. R. Commons, Races and Immigrants in America, pp. 26-44. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1920.
2 For a summary of the conditions of transportation of the colonists and immi-
grants, and especially the character of indentured service, see M. R. Davie, World
Immigration, pp. 29-39. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1936.
3 L, Garis, Immigration Restrictions, Chapter I. New Yotk: Th^ Mapmillan Com-
pany, 1927,
BRITISH AMERICANS
35
religious freedom was one of the attractive inducements held out by
most colonies. Colonists were not ready to welcome those who did
not cherish the same beliefs that had become sacred to them.” *
Catholics were discriminated and legislated against in most colonies.
Pennsylvania was the only really liberal colony in the matter of reli-
gious tolerance.
It was also quite natural that the various colonies soon began to
object to the importation of the paupers, cpnvicts, and felons whom
England sought to send to them. It is of interest that the economic
arguments, so important in hastening later immigration, were used
even this early. In fact, at the turn of the eighteenth century, some
colonies tried to attract settlers by grants of land on the frontier.
They needed them for frontier defense. One of the grievances in
the Declaration of Independence was that the mother country had
hindered the free flow of workers into the colonies.
The religious, political, and cultural differences, the localistic old-
world customs and ideals, and the geographical isolation tended to
retard the rapid amalgamation of the immigrants from the non-British
stock to the culture which was dominant at that time. Communica-
tion and consequent social and economic contacts were more or less
difficult, and yearly arrivals from Europe promoted separatism. On
the other hand, the forces of assimilation were also at work. There
was the physical distance from England, through which the colonies
tended to retain the English cultural impress only in its modified form.
But the English language was dominant, and the forms of local govern-
ment, system of courts, and legal ideas were in use. Intermarriage
was common and in favor of producing a common type. Washing-
ton, in his Farewell Address, speaks to “Citizens by birth or choice,
of a common country” and mentions that “With slight shades of
differences, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political
principles.”
As shown in Table I (page 632), more than two and one half million
immigrants from England arrived during the 121 years of recorded
statistics, the peak being reached in the decade 1881-1890, when there
were 644,680 new arrivals. However, as is true to a varying extent
of all immigration, over one third of the entire number returned
home."
Like the Scots and the Welsh, the English first settled chiefly in
*L. G. Brown, Immtgration, p. 51. New York: Longmans, Green and Company,
1933. Reprinted by permission.
“ H. C. Duncan, Ivmtigration and Assimilation, p. 42. Boston: D. C. Heath and
Company, 1933.
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
3<5
the Northeast and Middle West; but, as the years passed, they
diffused throughout the entire United States. In 1940, there were
657,335 individuals bom in England or Wales living in this country.
The largest number, approximately 120,000, lived in New York,
with Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, California, Ohio,
Rhode Island, and Connecticut following in the above order.
As informal ties to the homeland declined, social organization
crystallized the link between the old world and the new and organ-
izations developed to promote Anglo-American relations. The
General Society of Mayflower Descendants, and the Ark and Dove,
were made up exclusively of those of English descent, as were also
the Colonial Dames of America and the Elereditary Descendants of
Colonial Governors.®
Groups that preserve English customs and traditions in this country
provided another bond between Great Britain and the United States.
In this class may be placed what was the first regularly organized mili-
tary company in America, the Auicient and Honorable Artillery Com-
pany of Boston, Massachusetts. Formed in 1637, this military organ-
ization, which held drills in Faneuil Hall, was modeled upon the
Honorable Artillery Company, the oldest existing body of volunteers
in Great Britain, founded in 1537.
The English Folk Dance Society of America was organized in 1915
by Cecil J. Sharp, an authority on folk dances and folk music, and
aimed to perpetuate and encourage folk dancing in its traditional
English form in America. Branches and centers were established in
many parts of this country. Since 1926, the group has conducted
a summer school or Folk Dance Camp at Pinewoods Camp near
Plymouth, Massachusetts.
As colonizers and immigrants, the English were indissolubly con-
nected with the growth of America. George Washington was the
great grandson of a Yorkshireman, and nearly two thirds of our
presidents have been wholly or partially of English blood. Every
chapter of American history is studded with English names. We
received not only the colonizers and immigrants from England, to-
gether with their culture, but also our first ironworks, cotton mills,
and railroads. It was English capital that supplied the means for
much of the early beginnings of our industrial development.
The English have been leaders in every enterprise. We have no
important walk of life that does not bear somewhere the hallmark
6 Helen J. Nolan, Organizations in the United States Interested in Anglo-American
Relations. New York: The Digest Press, Vol. VI, No. 6, December, 1936.
BRITISH AMERICANS
37
of the Englishman. Two of the signers of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence were English-born: Robert Morris, who placed his entire
fortune at the service of his adopted country, and Button Gwinnett.
A forceful Englishman named Thomas Paine did much for American
independence with his pen. Although bom in Bermuda, Francis
Landey Patton, who was president of Princeton University for
fourteen years, is considered an Englishman. John Harvard’s name
is associated with the founding of the oldest and one of the most out-
standing of American universities. Samuel Slater was the founder
of our cotton-mill industry at the close of the Revolution.
Coming to our more modem period, we find James Smithson, that
mysterious benefactor of ours who never even visited our shores but
who bequeathed to us the fortune and the idea from which our Smith-
sonian Institution sprang. The writings of Thompson Seton, friend
and biographer of wild life and animals, are still widely read, as is
Francis Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy. James E. Scripps’
name is connected with a chain of newspapers. James Elverson began
his career as a messenger boy and then became the proprietor of the
Philadelphia Inquirer. The genius of Richard Mansfield, the mag-
netism of William Faversham, the winsomeness of Annie Russell, the
classic charm of Julia Marlowe are still remembered by the theater
lovers of America. Great motion picture stars of England have con-
tributed much to our Hollywood studios: Charles Laughton, Merle
Oberon, Herbert Marshall, and Ronald Colman head an extensive list.
Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke was the head of the New York Metropolitan
Museum of Art. William Colgate, soap magnate, it also identified
with philanthropic pursuits. Samuel Gompers, a former leader of
the labor movement, was born in England.
In the field of mechanical invention, we also must note John
Stevens, grandson of an English immigrant, who built our first steam
r ailr oad in Hoboken, and Walter Katte who built the New York ele-
vated railroad. Robert Hoe adapted the “Hoe cylinder” invented
by his gfandfather, which made possible our great metropolitan dailies.
It is scarcely possible that Andrew Carnegie’s dream of a British-
American uni on will ever become a reality. But the significant in-
fluence of the past combined with the stem realities of global war
translated that dream into a vsddely proposed plan.’^ The postwar
world will require the closest cooperation between Great Britain and
the United States; the foundation has been well laid in the pattern
of our common culture.
’’C. H. Streit, UTiion Now. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939.
38
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
SCOTTISH
There were two streams of Scottish immigration. One came
directly from the motherland, the other came through the province of
Ulster in North Ireland. The latter are claimed as Irishmen by
Irish writers in the United States and are commonly referred to as
“Scotch-Irish.” To assert that these Ulster Scots are either Scottish
or Irish after two centuries of blending is difficult, especially since they
have become almost a distinct group unto themselves.
The migration to America was influenced by many factors. The
first impetus was given by the rebellion of 1641. During the Com-
monwealth, the war between Scotland and England resulted in large
numbers of Scottish prisoners taken at Dunbar (1650) and at
Worcester (1651) being sold into service in the colonies. Revolu-
tions, discrimination by England against Scottish woolen goods, and
especially religious intolerance, were all contributing forces to this early
migration. Two shiploads of Scottish Jacobites were sent over in
1717 and sold as servants. Matters became so desperate at the begin-
ning of the ninth decade of the seventeenth century that a number of
nobles and gentlemen determined to settle in New Jersey and the
Carolinas. The mania for the emigration to North Carolina affected
all classes and continued for many years. In 1735, the General As-
sembly of North Carolina provided for recruiting among the High-
lands of Scotland.
Although many Scots came to New England, they never settled
there in such numbers as to leave their impress on the community so
deeply as they did in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the
South. From the coast settlements, the stream of immigration flowed
south into the Virginias, the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
and west across the Alleghenies into the great territory of Ohio. The
immigration slowly increased until the accession of George III. At
the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, it is believed that one third
of the entire population of Pennsylvania was of Ulster-Scottish origin.®
The wide distribution of these immigrants was accounted for in
large part by the sentiments they carried with them. The people in
most of the seaboard colonies, and especially the governing classes,
had preserved the Anglican flavor in their folkways, and so the larger
number of Scots and Ulster Scots went to Pennsylvania and the
Carolinas. Their independent position on the frontiers proved to be
8 W. Reid, The Scot in America and the Ulster-Scot, is the most readable summary
of Scottish immigration.
BRITISH AMERICANS
39
of importance during the American Revolution. The Ulster Scots
especially had felt the hand of England so heavy upon them that they
had been glad to leave their green fields along the Ban and the Foyle
to come to the new world. It was not strange, then, that “the first
voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection with Great
Britain (the Mecklenburg and West Moreland Resolutions) came not
from the Puritans of New England, nor the Dutch of New York, nor
the Planters of Virginia, but from the Ulster-Scottish Presbyterians.” ®
According to the United States census of 1940, of the 279,321
foreign born from Scotland in America, over 50,000 live in New
York, with lesser numbers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts,
Illinois, and California. Although the Scot has an Anglo-Saxon back-
ground, he is slow to become naturalized; in 1930, only 60.9 per cent
of the foreign bom had become American citizens. In religion, the
American Scot is almost sure to be Presbyterian, and the influence of
Scottish Presbyterianism on the formation of the Republic cannot be
exaggerated.^®
From the beginning, the Scot impressed his cultural background on
America. Who need be Scottish to join in singing “Annie Laurie”
or “Cornin’ Through the Rye?” Today no city of importance is
without its St. Andrew’s Society or Bums or Caledonian Club.
There are more than 1,000 of these societies, including the Order of
Scottish Clan, organized in 1878, and the Daughters of Scotia, organ-
ized in 1898. Philip Livingston was the first president of the St.
Andrew’s Society of New York. Among his sons was the president
of the New York Provincial Congress. Another son signed the
Declaration of Independence, and another was governor of New
Jersey. It is of interest that of the fifty-six members of the Conti-
nental Congress in 1776 who signed the Declaration of Independence,
James Wilson of Pennsylvania and John Witherspoon of New Jersey
had been born ill Scotland and nine others (Willian Hooper of North
Carolina, George Ross of Delaware, Thomas Nelson, Jr. of Virginia,
and P hili p Livingston of New York, among others) were of Scottish
descent. John Witherspoon’s name is still celebrated in America in
educational and other circles; in 1766, he was elected president of the
College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). The descend-
ants of Principal Witherspoon can be traced in honorable positions
- ® George Bancroft, The History of the United States, Vol. 5, p. 77. Boston:
D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1861.
10 The best summary of the Scottish influence in America is D. MacDougall, Scots
and Scots’ Descendants in America.
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
40
in the ministry and the professions to the present day. Patrick
Henry, the orator and patriot, was the son of a Scot named John
Henry. Of the presidents of the United States, Monroe, Hayes,
Grant, the Roosevelts, and Wilson are of Scottish descent. In Wash-
ington’s first cabinet, out of four members, two were Scots and a
third was an Ulster Scot: Edmond Randolph, Alexander Hamilton,
and Henry Knox. In other phases of American politics the Scots
have been represented by such names as John C. Calhoun, Jefferson
Davis, James G. Blaine, J. C. Breckinridge, the Livingstons, Chauncey
Mitchell Depew, Stephen A. Douglas, William McKinley, and count-
less others. Sam Houston, president of the Republic of Texas and
first representative of the state of Texas in the United States Senate,
was of Scottish blood. Daniel Webster was descended from the New
Hampshire Scots. In the Civil War, Scots and their descendants were
prominent on both sides. General U. S. Grant and Robert E. Lee
were both of Scottish descent. Admiral John Paul Jones, the most
famous of the old-time American sea-fighters and the first commodore
of the American Navy, was a Scottish lad of thirteen when he saw
America for the first time.
Robert Lenox, founder of the Presbyterian Hospital and the Lenox
Library in New York, was one of the five wealthiest New Yorkers
for years before his death in 1840. Numerous American educators
have been of Scottish descent. William and Mary College, preceded
only by Harvard, was founded by a Scot, James Blair. An Ayrshire
man, James McCosh, was another president of Princeton University.
Dr. John H. Finley, former commissioner of education of the state
of New York, is of that background. In more recent years, James
MacAlister was one of the foremost American educators. William
McLure has been called “the father of American geology.” John
Muir, geologist and explorer, was the author of many books on natural
science; after him is named the great Muir Glacier ift. Alaska. Peter
Cooper built the first locomotive in the United States. Alexander
Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, was born in Edinburgh.
The telegraph depends today on the inventions of Joseph Henry and
F. B. Morse. Cyrus Hall McCormick invented the reaping machine.
James Scott and George Lauder helped to build Pittsburgh’s great
steel industries.
Other great names in American life include: James Fenimore
Cooper, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Gordon Bennett,
Whitelaw Reid, Arthur Brisbane, Horace Greeley, and Andrew
Carnegie. All were either born in Scotland or were of Scottish
descent.
BRITISH AMERICANS
41
Like their fellow immigrants from England, but to a somewhat
lesser degree, the Scots have merged into the composite that is
America. They are a minority group only in the sense that they
represent another of the many rivulets coming from foreign shores,
blending easily and quite unconsciously into the current of American
life, and contributing much to its richness and beauty.
WELSH
The Welsh came to the United States with the Puritans, the
Huguenots, and the Cavaliers. The first Welsh immigrant of histor-
ical fame is Roger Williams, but even before him, in 1620, had come
John Alden, and in 1630, Edward Garfield, the ancestor of our
twentieth president. Among the first settlers of Pennsylvania who
landed here in 1682 were a large number from Wales, mostly Quakers
from the vicinity of Dolgetan. Thereafter the immigration continued
for many years, and Welshmen could be found in all settlements from
the woods of Maine to the pines of Florida, and as far west as the
Alleghenies. In fact, in the early days of Philadelphia, the Welsh
language was freely spoken in its streets and market places, and Welsh
Quakers bought the Welsh Tract, now a suburb of that city. Al-
though their language is no longer spoken there, names tell the story
of their origin. The maps of southeastern Pennsylvania are thickly
dotted with Welsh names — Merion, Gwynedd, Pencader, Maldwyn,
Bryn-Mawr, Haverford, Berwyn, North Wales, and others. The
decline of the Welsh in Philadelphia and vicinity after the Revolution
discouraged further emigration there^^ and many of those who
remained turned to other states. Between 1796 and 1802, Welsh
settlements started in other portions of Pennsylvania, New York,
Ohio, and Maine. In Maine are found many Welsh place names such
as Bangor, Monmouth, and Wales.
Although the United States census of 1940 states that we have
approximately 50,000 foreign-bom Welsh, the Welsh themselves esti-
mate the number at 250,000 to 300,000,^^^ including those bom here
of Welsh parents. There is hardly a state without its Welsh Day,
its Welsh church, or its eisteddfod. Gwyl Dewi is commemorated
wherever a few Welshmen can gather together. In general, however,
the largest number live in Pennsylvania, with a lesser number in New
York, Ohio, Illin ois, and Michigan. The larger proportion of them
F. J. Harries, “Welshmen and the United States,” Qlamourgan County Times,
1927, p. 17; Erasmus W. Jones, “The Welsh in America,” Atlantic Monthly^ March,
1876, pp. 305-313; H. N. Casson, ‘Welsh in America,” Munsey'^s Magazine, 1905-
1906, Vol. 35, pp. 749-7J4-
42
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
are miners and consequently are concentrated in mining areas. Per-
chance the W elshman has had to learn the English language in Amer-
ica. But that does not prevent him from heading the list of the United
States naturalized citizens (in 1940, over 75 per cent had been natu-
ralized).
The contributions of the Welsh to American life have been many
and varied. They did much to establish our iron business, and more
still for our coal industry. In addition to being themselves capable
miners, they have contributed to the development of the industry.
David Thomas came in 1840 and became “the father of the American
iron business” by developing the hot-blast and the first big furnaces.
Marshall Owen Roberts was one of the founders of the Erie, Lacka-
wanna, and Texas Pacific Railroad; George B. Roberts was for many
years president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
David Lloyd, chief justice, Thomas Lloyd, first governor of Penn-
sylvania, and D. Thomas Wynn, speaker of the first Assembly, were
Welsh. Meriwether Lewis was a member of the noted Lewis and
Clark expedition. Elihu Yale gave $4,000 to a little college at New
Haven and so perpetuated his name in one of our greatest institutions
of learning. Brown University came into existence as the result of
the efforts of the Welsh ministers, the Reverend Morgan Edwards and
Dr. Samuel Jones. Ephraim Williams (1715-1755), the founder of
Williams College, developed the first observatory in the United States.
Charles Evans Hughes, the chief justice of the United States Supreme
Court, has a Welsh lineage. The same applies to Jonathan Edwards,
one of America’s greatest clesgymen, and to J. J. Davis, former secre-
tary of labor. Robert Owen, the first great social reformer, came
here in 1823 from Wales. Other leaders of Welsh descent include
John L. Lewis, labor organizer, D. W. Griffith of motion-picture
fame, and J. Pierpont Morgan, financier. The following past presi-
dents are claimed to have been men of Welsh origin or partly of
Welsh descent; John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John
Q. Adams, W. H. Harrison, Abraham Lincoln, and General Gar-
field.
Thus, in spite of their small numbers, the Welsh immigrants and
their descendants have made an indelible mark on every state in the
Union and throughout our history. In many communities, especially
in the mining areas, they have retained a greater degree of autonomy
than have either the Scots or the English. This is perhaps natural
because of at least two factors: language and greater local and occu-
pational unity.
IRISH AMERICANS
43
B. IRISH AMERICANS
A. J. Reilly
There is an old tradition that the first European to set foot on the
soil of the new world was an Irish sailor whom Columbus had
recruited in Galway for his expedition; but long before Christopher
Columbus set out upon his momentous voyage this western land was
known to the Irish. From earliest times the voyage and vision liter-
ature of the Celts dealt with a land beyond the rim of the western sea
whither chosen heroes and champions journeyed to reap the rewards
of their valor. No doubt these tales exerted a powerful influence on
the minds of later Christian missionaries, tales of whose westward
voyages are numerous. The most widely known of these was the
Navigatio of St. Brendan, founder of the monastery of Clonfert.
The Navigatio is a Latin account of the missionary journeys of this
sixth century cleric which took him as far west as the coast of North
America.
The first recorded settlement of Irish colonists, however, was in
1621 on the site of the present city of Newport News. It may have
been this colony to which Reverend Andrew White, S.J., referred in
his Narrative of a Voyage to Maryland. Father White accompanied
Lord Baltimore’s first group of colonists in 1633. To avoid the
Spanish fleet, the expedition put in at Montserrat. “The inhabi-
tants,” wrote Father White, “are Irishmen who were banished by
the English of Virginia on account of their professing the Catholic
faith.”
From the records of the Massachusetts colony we learn that in 1634
a settlement of “Irish and Schottische gentlemen with considerable
quantity of equipment and merchandise” was made on the Merrimack
River. In the same year, we leam from the diary of Governor
Winthrop, “Darby Field, an Irishman” explored the White Moun-
tains. In 1640 William Collins, with a band of Irish refugees from
the Barbados, settled in New Hampshire where Collins immediately
opened a school. This was the period of the “plantations” in Ireland,
and English shipmasters made considerable sums transporting the dis-
possessed Irish landowners seized by the English to the Barbados
where frequently they were sold into slavery.
The real beginning of large-scale Irish immigration was about the
middle of the century. Cromwell as lord lieutenant of Ireland was
attempting by fire and sword to make the country into an English
44
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
Puritan settlement. The entire population of the three provinces,
Ulster, Munster, and Leinster, was driven out and their lands appor-
tioned among Cromwell’s followers. They had the choice of seek-
ing homes in the desolate and rocky mountain regions of west
Connaught or being shot on sight if they remained on their lands.
Thousands of the dispossessed fled or were forcibly transported to
America. In the year 1 649 a single vessel embarked with one hundred
and seventy Irish persons for the “plantations in America.” In 1650
another vessel brought one hundred Irish men and women to the
Virginia colony. In 1651 one thousand Irish emigrants left Bristol,
England, for the New England colonies. In 1653 the Kelly and
Healy famihes from Galway established the first white settlement
in Maine. In 1654 the vessel Goodfello'W brought four hundred Irish
“redemptioners” to New England. In 1655 two thousand persons
were shipped from Ireland to the Barbados and the American colonies.
Between 1652 and 1655 approximately six thousand five hundred Irish
were landed at various American ports, and it is estimated that by 1660
ten thousand Irish had been scattered among the thirteen colonies.
The majority of these settlers were from the former large land-
owning class, but toward the end of the century the type of immi-
gration changed. Large numbers of business men, artisans and skilled
workers of all kinds, especially weavers, were forced to flee from
Ireland when the English trade and navigation acts ruined Irish indus-
tries. In the new world there was need for their crafts and ample
opportunities for themselves and their children. Among the first
purchasers who embarked with William Penn in 1682 were a number
of Irish families from the towns of Wexford and Cashel. Because
of its liberal laws, Pennsylvania became extremely popular with Irish
immigrants who found scant welcome in colonies where liberty of
conscience was not allowed. Penn’s secretary, James Logan from
County Armagh, was “the most remarkable inhabitant of the English
colonies during the first half of the eighteenth century,” says his
descendant, Logan Pearsall Smith, in Unforgotten Yean. As the
agent for William Penn he held successively every important office
in the gift of the colony. He was an accomplished linguist, a master
mathematician, and a widely known botanist. He was one of Frank-
lin’s first patrons and bequeathed his library, the finest in America,
to the Philadelphia Library founded by Franklin.
A contemporary of Logan’s was Thomas Dongan, Pennsylvania’s
first schoolmaster, son of a Dubhn merchant and kinsman of Governor
Dongan of New York. George Talbot from Castle Rooney in
IRISH AMERICANS
45
County Roscommon was the first solicitor general of Maryland, and
Charles Carroll, grandfather of the signer of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, was the first proprietary governor. In 1683 two Irish
settlements were made in New Jersey. The strength of the Irish ele-
ment in the colonies at the close of the seventeenth century and their
close relations with the motherland can be judged from the fact that
in 1686 the ship Katherine from Dublin arrived in Boston laden with
supplies for the relief of the victims of King Philip’s war. This “Irish
donation” we learn from the records of the Massachusetts colony was
divided among five hundred towns and gave relief to some three
thousand persons.
The tide of Irish immigration reached the flood during the eight-
eenth century when, according to Froude in The English in Ireland,
not enough ships could be found to carry those fleeing to America.
The penal laws against Catholics, the Test Act against Presbyterians,
the trade and navigation acts against all Irish industry and commerce
spread economic ruin throughout the country, which was aggravated
by the famine of 1740, only a little less disastrous than that which
occurred a century later. Between 1714 and 1720 fifty-four ships
arrived in Boston with Irish immigrants who were induced to settle
along the frontier and in Maine and New Hampshire. In 1720
there were so many Irish in Massachusetts that the general court
ordered that “certain Irish families recently arrived from Ireland be
warned to move off.” In 1723 an ordinance was passed requiring the
registration of all Irish immigrants. In Philadelphia the number of
Irish in 1728 was estimated at five thousand. Within two years, from
1771 to 1773, some thirty thousand emigrants left the northern prov-
ince of Ulster alone.
Some American writers refer to this immigration as “Scotch Irish”
or “Ulster Scottish” and claim that these immigrants were neither
Irish nor Scottish, but a nationality distinct from both. There is,
however, no factual basis for this assertion. Colonial and early
nineteenth century writers, as George Chambers, refer to Scots and
Irish, but make no mention of a third group. The distinction did
not arise until about the middle of the nineteenth century and coin-
cided with the rise of the Know-Nothing movement, which was
especially directed against Irish immigrants professing the Catholic
faith. Probably William Willis, who in 1858 compiled a history of
the McKonstry family, was the first to use the term Scotch-Irish.
No doubt some Irish were pleased to be dissociated from those
“foteigners” whom Know-Nothingism had made unpopular and wel-
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
46
corned the distinction “Scotch-Irish” and the myth of a distinct na-
tionality, but the general Irish attitude is expressed by Thomas Hunter,
founder and first president of Hunter College of the City of New
York and one of those frequently described as “Scotch-Irish.” In
his Autobiography he writes, “I was born in Ireland as were my
parents and grandparents, and that makes me Irish, and I am proud
of it.”
No accurate statistics cover the Irish immigration during the colonial
period; but that the Irish outnumbered other racial groups seems to
have been accepted by contemporary writers. That they brought
to America a hatred of tyranny, especially as represented by the
English government, strong enough to precipitate the Revolution,
to carry it to a victorious close, to carry the young country through
its second War for Independence, and to remain a force in American
life until after the turn of the present century is equally true. Douglas
Campbell in The Puritan in Holland, England, and America says of
the Irish, “By them American independence was first openly advo-
cated and but for their efforts seconding those of the New England
Puritans, that independence would not have been secured.” Joseph
Galloway, testifying at the British parliamentary investigation into the
cause and conduct of the American war, asserted that fully half the
continental army was Irish; but Michael J. O’Brien, who has done
painstaking research on the subject, places the figure at 38 per cent.
David Ramsay, historian of South Carohna, says, “The colonists which
now form the United States may be considered as Europe trans-
planted. Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, Holland, Switzer-
land, Poland and Italy furnished the original stock of the present
population, and are generally supposed to have contributed to it in
the order named. For the last seventy or eighty years no nation has
contributed so much to the population of America as Ireland.”
Irish immigrants were among the pioneers who opened up the great
West. John Lewis from Donegal led the first group of settlers to
the Shenandoah Valley. An Indian trader named Doherty was the
first white man known to have penetrated the wilderness of Kentucky,
and a fellow countryman and explorer, James McBride, fired the spirit
of adventure in Daniel Boone. Patrick Kelly explored Utah, and
the first dwelling erected by a white man in what is now the state
of Oklahoma was built by Hugh McGarry in 1790. Northern New
York was explored by two brothers from Limerick, Michael and
Nicholas MacDonald, who established themselves on the shore of
what is now Ballston Lake. The sons of Irish parents, the Creighton
IRISH AMERICANS
47
brothers, opened up Nebraska, established Omaha as a thriving city
and there founded Creighton University.
Celtic genius for organization early made the Irish a force in the
pohtical life of the country. In 1789 the Tammany Society was
founded in New York by an ex-Revolutionary soldier, William
Mooney, to combat property qualifications for voters urged by the
wealthy Tories. The first post-Revolutionary mayor of New York
City was James Duane, son of Anthony Duane of Cork. In 1774
Christopher Colics, who had emigrated from Dublin ten years earlier,
began work on a water-supply system for New York City and in 1784
presented a plan to the New York Assembly for the construction of
a canal to connect the city with the Great Lakes. Less than a genera-
tion later the Erie Canal was built by DeWitt Clinton, whose ancestors
came from County Longford. The first governor of the state of
Georgia was the Irishman, John Houston, and John Boyle, son of
Irish immigrants, was the first governor of Illinois. The city of
Denver was named for the family of John Denver who became the
first governor of Kansas. The Irish-born William Claiborne was the
first governor of the state of Louisiana, and Irish governors guided
the development of the territories of Oregon, Mississippi, and Mon-
tana, the most famous of whom was Thomas Francis Meagher, Irish
revolutionary. Civil War hero, and secretary and temporary governor
of the Montana territory.
The influx of political refugees during the early years of the nine-
teenth century gave America such distinguished families as the
Emmets, the MacNevens, the Guineys, and others. Business and
professional men, they turned their considerable talents to the serv-
ice of the country of their adoption. As a colonial commentator
wrote of the Irish of his day, “They became thoroughly American
from the moment of their arrival.” Thomas Addis Emmet, brother
of Robert Emmet, soon after his arrival in this country was admitted
by special act to the New York State Bar. William James MacNeven
was appointed lecturer on clinical medicine in the newly established
College of Physicians and Surgeons two years after his arrival in this
country. Co-editor of the New York Medical Journal and author
of a number of scientific works, including Exposition of the Atomic
Theory, his best-known work, he was the leading exponent of “those
discoveries and doctrines which raised chemistry into a science.”
About the middle of the century occurred the great famine which
all but wiped out Ireland’s agricultural population. During the
centuries of foreign occupation, the island had become practically a
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
48
one-crop country. When that crop failed three years in succession,
the plight of the people was indescribable. All who could fled.
Immigration to the United States rose from 50,724 for the decade
between 1820 and 1830 to 914,119 for the decade from 1850 to i860.
Thereafter for nearly three quarters of a century the bulk of Irish
immigration came from the rural areas, the small tenant farmers, farm
laborers, and other unskilled workers. They provided the labor for
our fields, mines, and factories. They built our railroads and our
telegraph and telephone lines. They also built our churches and
schools and colleges and made notable contributions to our cultural
life as teachers, writers, and journalists. To the son of an Irish
immigrant from Wexford, Patrick Tracy Jackson, New England
owes her supremacy in cotton manufacturing, as she owes her pride
in literary achievements to men and women of Irish ancestry such
as E. L. Godkin, founder of the Nation, John Boyle O’Reilly, editor
of the Pilot, the Jameses, Louise Imogen Guiney, and others. In
other sections the names of Fulton, Morse, McCormick, inventors.
Shea and O’Callaghan, historians, Thomas Hunter and Brother Azarius
(Patrick Francis MuUany) educators, Michael Maurice O’Shaugh-
nessey, engineer, John Concannon who introduced grape-growing
and wine-making to California, testify to the widespread immigration
and varied activities of the Irish in this country up to the close of the
nineteenth century.
From i860 forward immigration from Ireland decreased. The
total immigration for the decade ending in 1937 was less than one
hundred thousand with a steady decline to the present. Land tenure
and improved economic conditions in Ireland have contributed to
this decline in emigration, but the principal factor is the independence
which the greater part of Ireland now enjoys.
Decline in political influence and importance of Irish Americans
as a group has kept pace with the decline in immigration. During
the nineteenth century, the bulk of the new immigrants afliliated with
one political party and to some extent colored party policies.
Today, however, Irish Americans are to be found in all parties,
but are without the numerical strength to appreciably affect party
policies. The Irish were probably the largest single group opposed
to the Lend-Lease program and supporting the America-First move-
ment prior to our entrance into World War II; yet, since they were
scattered among the various parties, their opposition was ineffectual.
During the administration of Grover Cleveland, however, when
the Irish were concentrated in one party, they were able to secure
IRISH AMERICANS
49
the recall of the British ambassador, Lord Sackville-West, for im-
prudently interfering in an American election.
Similarly the Irish no longer form a distinct group in the armed
forces. In earlier wars the military genius of the Celt, for which
he had been famed from time immemorial, shed luster on American
arms. The part taken by the Irish in the Revolutionary War has
been exhaustively treated by Michael J. O’Brien in his Hidden Phase
of American History. In our Second War for Independence, in the
Mexican War, and in the Civil War men hke MacDonagh, Jackson,
Kearney, Corcoran, and Sheridan won imperishable glory. “In all
the records of the Civil War,” wrote the New England Puritan,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “there was no such thing as an Irish
coward.” Irish regiments, as the old New York Sixty-ninth, long
kept up cultural traditions among the rank and file, being constantly
filled by volunteers from their own numbers.
Modern mechanized warfare has changed all this. Volunteer
armies are no longer desired. Selective service has superseded the
old system and has completely eradicated the stigma that once attached
to the man who waited to be drafted into his country’s service. As
taxation is determined by duly constituted authority and the citizen
pays without question, so today the draft board determines when
citizens within military age shall be called to the service. The entire
male population of military age may be looked upon as a reserve force
subject to call. There is no particular distinction in simply obeying
the law. It is what is expected of all citizens. Likewise in actual
combat a single group cannot claim as a virtue what is common to all,
and in modem warfare, directed from far behind the lines and over
vast areas of earth and air, personal leadership and individual heroism
have ceased to be vital factors. The principle underlying modem
warfare is similar to that of mass production in industry.
We may expect a postwar world as different from that of the past
as modem warfare is from that of earlier wars. Questions concerning
foreign and domestic policies, education, economics, and social serv-
ices, the very form of government itself, will have to be decided.
The position that Irish Americans may be expected to take on these
questions may be judged from their past. From the first appearance
of the Celt upon the world’s stage he has been an individualist, an iso-
lationist, and vitally concerned with the spiritual. Thus we may
expect that Irish Americans, faced with two diametrically opposed
concepts of government, will combat the communal idea in any form,
the formation of a world state under whatever control, and the exten-
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
50
sioh of paternalism in government. Half a century ago John Boyle
O’Reilly expressed the hereditary Irish view of government: The
bottom right,” he wrote, “is the right of man not of the state.” These
expected trends may be deflected, however, by other influences. \Ve
have seen that immigration has practically ceased. Today Irish
Americans are for the most part two or more generations removed
from the original stock, and the farther from the source, the weaker
the cultural characteristics.
The cultural influence of the Irish may be strengthened in the
future. American institutions of learning on the whole have been
slow to grasp the significance of the Irish Literary Revival, which has
dominated the literary history of the present century. However,
during the decade preceding the outbreak of the war, indications
were not lacking that our educators were becoming more alive to the
implications of the movement. Irish Americans, themselves, no
longer preoccupied with politics and government, have become more
conscious of the early contributions of their people to civihzation as
well as to the history of their own country. It is, however, impossible
to predict postwar trends. Influences unsuspected as yet may turn
the course of our civilization into entirely new channels.
Whatever the trends may be, the Irish in the United States, im-
mersed in American life, present no immigration problem principally
because the immigration from Ireland was not the usual exodus of
surplus population or escape of adventurous or undisciplined spirits.
It was the flight of a whole people from unbearable conditions im-
posed upon the nation by a foreign power which was able neither to
subdue nor to placate. A sense of finality attended their departure
from their native land. They entered the United States as permanent
citizens and spent themselves with incomparable prodigality in the
service of the land they adopted as their own. They contributed
little to the crimmal class, although, because of their tendency to con-
gregate in congested urban areas, an undesirable type of citizen, the
petty grafter, the unscrupulous ward leader, the venal politician,
found it easy to thrive.
The Irish immigrant needed no schooling in American ideas of
democratic government in which he saw the realization of his own
and his forefathers’ dreams. He brought to this country his “living
faith in another world,” in the words of Daniel Corkery, and, clinging
tenaciously to the faith of his fathers, he helped to keep religion an
integral part of American life and to hold back for a generation the
rising tide of materialism. As early as 1683 Francis Makemie, “father
NORWEGIAN AMERICANS
51
of Presb37terianism in America,” came from Ramelton in Donegal
to preach to the scattered Presbyterians and for twenty years “rode
missionary” in Maryland. In like manner a group of Irish colonists
founded Methodism in this country, and Irish immigrants laid the
foundations and were the principal element in the growth of the
Catholic Church in America. They and their children have provided
the laity for the new congregations and a large percentage of the
clergy who minister to these congregations. They have been the
mainstay of some seven thousand Cathohc schools and a thousand
Catholic colleges and universities throughout the country. Their
interest in the land of their forefathers is largely sentimental and
entirely secondary to their primary interest, the United States of
America, to which they have given much and received much in return.
C. NORWEGIAN AMERICANS
B. J. Hovde
Although scattered individuals had come to the United States in
earlier periods, the Norwegian immigration is commonly dated from
October, 1825, when the first organized company arrived in New
York on the sloop Restaurationen. Quakers, who felt themselves
religiously persecuted, they were led by their “scout” Cleng Peerson
to settle in Kendall Township, New York state. Not until 1836 did
another considerable group of Norwegians (about 200) depart for
America, lured by the account of a returned member of the “sloop”
colony. This group settled on the Fox River, in La Salle County,
Illinois, and inaugurated the great midwestem Norwegian settlement.
Thereafter the movement became a steadily growing flood, reaching
its climax between the Civil War and the first World War. Between
1836 and 1943, approximately 850,000 persons of Norwegian birth
settled in the United States. (Until i860, immigration statistics of
Norwegians and Swedes were combined.)
The era of large-scale Norwegian immigration ended with the
American restrictive legislation of 1924. Even before that date the
proportion of Norwegian-born in the American population had begun
to decline; it was 3.5 per cent in 1890, but only 2.3 per cent in 1940*
The United States census of 1940 gives 262,088 of Norwegian birth
and 662,600 native born of Norwegian parentage.
No adequate statement of tfie reasons behind this immigration
possible. Religious persecutions and dissatisfaction certainly played
some part in the earlier stages. Another oft-cited reason was the
52
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
alleged hauteur and insolence of the public officials in Norway, symp-
tomatic of the social revolt that eventually democratized Norway
both in politics and administration. But far more important were
economic considerations. Between 1750 and 1850, the population
of Norway increased from 625,000 to 1,399,733, or almost 125 per
cent. The same period brought a notable improvement in the econ-
omy of the country, but the rate was not so great as was the rate of
population increase, particularly in the rural districts, which comprised
about 90 per cent of the population. Long before Norwegian emi-
grants became pioneers in America, there was much pioneering
activity in the home country, for the growing population pushed the
forests back to make room for the plow, even on very inferior land.
Nevertheless, it was necessary in many districts to parcel the farms
among many heirs, with the result that the parcels became too small
to sustain a family in decency and dignity. The class of married
agricultural laborers, with little or no land to cultivate for their own
use, the so-called husmaend, or crofters, increased rapidly, causing
wages to decline so much that this group usually lived in dire misery.
In 1845 crofters constituted 26 per cent of the rural population.
It was very plain then that agriculture could not support all of the
people who were trying to live by it. Meanwhile, urban activities,
commerce, and industry were expanding but slowly; and to make
matters worse, these occupations were not free to anyone who might
wish to enter them but were monopolized by the guilds or held under
legal privilege. Shut off from a livelihood both in town and country,
many people naturally began to seek the means of existence outside
of Norway. In 1839, legislation had been adopted that abolished
most of the occupational monopolies, but the good effects thereof
could but slowly become apparent. The late 1840’s and the early
1850’s were therefore marked by an acute social crisis, manifesting
itself in widespread poverty, a high rate of jail commitments, a higher
illegitimate birth rate, the appearance of radical social theory, and in
emigration. Once begun, emigration fluctuated with the trend of
economic conditions both in Norway and in the United States, though
it should be noted that not until 1857 did Norwegian business and
finance become very sensitive to the movements of the world economic
organism.
But why did these Norwegians choose to come to the United States
and to particular areas there? America in the eighteenth century
was beginning to be known as a land of heroes and of freedom. The
Norwegians began to admire the ideas of the American Revolution
NORWEGIAN AMERICANS
53
and its representatives, Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. Mer-
chants and the small Quaker colony in Stavanger had direct American
connections. The American Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution of 1789 were treasured in many households. With the
arrival of the first colony in 1 825, contact became direct. Thereafter,
the letters written by emigrants to their relatives and friends at home,
the so-called “America letters,” spread news of the opportunities to
be found in the new world. They were often read aloud in groups,
copied and passed from hand to hand, and even printed in the news-
papers. With every new emigrant, the number of such letters grew.
As Professor Theodore C. Blegen has shown, the influence of these
documents from the hands of acquaintances whose veracity could
not be doubted was almost incalculable. Soon there began to appear
another more formal and complete body of information about Amer-
ica, the most suitable locations for setdement, and the best way to
travel — namely the “America-books,” one of the earliest and most
influential of which was Ole Rynning’s True Account of America,
for the Information and Help of Peasant and Commoner, Published in
Christiania, 18^8. Inevitably, as soon as emigration began to assume
some proportions, shipowners, who might profit by transportation,
began to drum up business for themselves by sending agents into the
country districts.
No adequate records exist that indicate to what social classes or
occupations the emigrants belonged. This much is clear, however,
that until about 1871-1875 the movement was predominantly rural.
Furthermore, the emigrants seem to have come mainly from the class
of small, peasant proprietors. The crofters, who were married agri-
cultural laborers, seldom were able to find money for passage, and
the better-situated farmers usually preferred the good living they
already possessed to any American adventure, although they fre-
quently helped their younger children to emigrate. In spite of the
fact that crofters found it hard to leave Norway, there can be no
doubt that emigration was an important factor in the practical dis-
appearance of this class in Norway, for a large number of the agri-
cultural servant class, who would have become crofters as soon as
they married, departed to seek their fortunes in the United States.
Petty owners of land in Norway often found themselves so encum-
bered by debt and so weighted down by taxation that it seemed
wise to trade their equities for passage money to America. After the
five-year period 1871—1875, emigration became more an urban and
industrial than a rural phenomenon. Between 1891 and 1925, 17.7^^
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
54
per cent of the Norwegian emigrants were listed in the official statistics
as farmers, 25.5 per cent as craftsmen, 12.0 per cent as merchants
and seamen, 36.25 per cent as laborers, and 8.5 per cent as miscel-
laneous.
The first settlements, in New York and Illinois, did not attract many
subsequent arrivals. Wisconsin, where the first Norwegian pioneers
estabhshed a colony at Muskego, near Milwaukee, in 1839, became
the goal of most emigrants prior to 1850. In 1914, there were Nor-
wegians living in almost all of that state, but the great, concentrated
settlements were in the south-central part, with Dane County as a
center. Norwegians began to move into the northern tier of Iowa
counties, particularly Winneshiek, beginning about 1850, and into
the south-eastern counties of Minnesota at about the same time. By
1914, there were more Norwegians in Minnesota than in any other
state. North and South Dakota began to receive Norwegians about
r86o, and today this element constitutes a larger percentage of their
populations than of the population of Minnesota. Montana, Wash-
ington, and Oregon attracted many Norwegian immigrants after
about 1880.
) As long as they came chiefly from the rural communities, most of
them sought farms in the United States; but when the towns of
Norway began to contribute a large part of the stream, the number
who sought a living in the American urban communities increased.
Between 1920 and 1930, the number of Norwegian foreign-bom
residents increased in the industrial states — Connecticut, Massachu-
setts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania;
declined considerably in the agricultural states — Iowa, Minnesota,
Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin; but increased
slightly in Washington and Oregon, and considerably in California.
In 1930 Minnesota had 267,953 persons who were either immi-
grants or children of immigrants from Norway, and in 1940 counted
52,025 immigrants. The corresponding figures for Wisconsin were
approximately 125,000 and 23,211; for North Dakota approximately
125.000 and 21,637. Washington, New York, and Illinois had about
75.000 immigrants and children of immigrants each in 1930; but the
same states had in 1940 only the following numbers of immigrants;
2 6,489, 3 7, 1 64, and 21,508 respectively. The tendency to avoid large
cities is shown by the fact that of all American cities with more than
100.000 people only four, in 1940, had more than 5,000 of Norwegian
birth: New Yorlt, 30,750 (of which 20,2 14 are in Brooklyn) ; Chicago,
14,933; Minneapolis, 11,777; Seattle, 8,436.
NORWEGIAN AMERICANS 5J
The census of 1930 affords even more precise information on the
preference of Norwegians for rural areas. Of all the “foreign white
stock” — that is, immigrants and children, one or both of whose parents
are immigrants — ^in all American urban communities (2,500 or over)
only 1.8 per cent are listed as Norwegian, whereas in rural commu-
nities (under 2,500) 6.1 per cent are so listed. When the “rural
communities” are broken down into the categories “rural-farm”
(actual farms) and “rural nonfarm” (villages), the census indicates
that in the “rural-farm” areas, 8.4 per cent of the “foreign white
stock” is Norwegian, while only 4.1 per cent is so hsted in the “rural
nonfarm” areas. The equivalent figures in the 1940 census are:
1.8 per cent “urban,” 3.9 per cent “rural nonfarm,” and 7.7 per cent
“rural-farm.” No previous census showed this stock beyond the
children of direct immigrants. If the 1940 census had done so, it
would certainly have been apparent that third- and fourth-generation
descendants of Norwegian immigrants to an even greater degree than
second-generation have participated fuUy in the general movement
of the American population away from rural to urban areas, where
generally speaking they have completely lost even the last vestiges of
their Norwegian origin.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Religion. It is safe to say that the zeal of the Norwegian immi-*
grants in affording themselves and their children the opportunities of
cultural development has equaled that of any foreign group. By
far the greater number of the Norwegian-speaking church members
have remained faithful to the Lutheran doctrine; in 1916, 96.7 per
cent of the communicants using the Norwegian language were
Lutherans, and only 3.3 per cent were non-Lutherans. But in that
year, the Lutheran communicant membership using Norwegian was
only 342,817 and the number of congregations only 3,138; therefore,
most of the Norwegian immigrants and their descendants have either
become unchurched or have joined non-Lutheran English-speaking
congregations. Almost all of the churches employing the Norwegian
language have for thirty years or more also used English, and in 1936
the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America first voted to drop the
word “Norwegian” from its name. Although the Norwegian immi-
grants brought no special social or racial divisions with them from the
old country, nevertheless they have almost from the beginning been
badly divided on religious issues. Leaving out of account the com-
paratively small number who have organized non-Lutheran church
5<S “OLD” IMMIGRATION
bodies, the theologically minded Norwegian Lutherans have, until
recently, maintained some six or seven different corporations, differ-
ing from one another but little in doctrine, somewhat more in the
character of their services, and very markedly in emotional attitude.
The Norwegians in America have at various times founded, main-
tained, and lost almost every kind of school. Parochial day schools
were maintained by many congregations, almost from the first; but
the second generation has generally given them up in favor of the
public school. Secondary religious schools or academies were
founded in more than fifty different communities between i860 and
1 890; but few of them survived more than ten years, and now there
are practically none left. A few normal schools and “ladies’ semi-
naries” were maintained for a number of years, only to become extinct,
along with the academies, in the 1920’s. Colleges have been sup-
ported with more zeal and success. Luther College in Decorah,
Iowa (1861), and St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota (1874), are
the oldest, best-equipped, and largest Norwegian- American colleges.
Others are Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota; Augustana Col-
lege, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Pacific Lutheran College, Park-
land, Washington. All of these colleges are now coeducational,
Luther College first admitting women in 1936. In the founding of
all these colleges the primary motive was to train candidates for the
theological seminaries of the various church bodies. The one im-
portant remaining institution of the last type is Luther Seminary in
St. Paul, Minnesota.
The press. The history of the Norwegian- American press is long
and varied. The first Norwegian newspaper in America was
Nordlyset (Northern Lights), pubhshed by J. D. Reymert in
Muskego, Wisconsin, 1 847-1849. It championed the Free Soil Party.
Since then and until 1917, it has been estimated that more than 450
newspapers and periodicals in the Norwegian language were founded,
an overwhelming proportion of them lasting less than five years. This
number includes rehgious as well as secular journals. The two
leading secular newspapers still appearing are Decorah Fasten
(Decorah, Iowa) and Skandinaven (Chicago, Illinois). Both were
founded in 1866, and thus span the period of heaviest Norwegian
immigration. Politically they are independent.
Organizations. The organized social fife of the Norwegians in
America has revolved largely around their churches, but it has been
almost unthinkable for the members of one body to join in the social
life of any other. There has been a considerable improvement in
NORWEGIAN AMERICANS
57
this respect since 1917, when the three largest church bodies merged
to form the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America. Church meet-
ings, church picnics, church socials, young people’s gatherings in the
basements of the churches or at the homes of members, ladies’ aid
societies, men’s religious clubs, mission festivals, and revival meetings
in one or two of the church bodies — ^these have composed most of
the social activities of the organized immigrants and their children.
Dances have been viewed with considerable disfavor among them,
owing to the austere influence of both the high-church and the low-
church tendencies. The Norwegians in America have been ardent
lovers of music. Singing societies have flourished in considerable num-
bers, and those of Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York have attained
no little renown in American music circles. Outstanding have been
the achievements of the St. Olaf College Choir, directed by F. Melius
Christiansen, and the Luther College Concert Band, directed by Carlo
A. Sperati. There have been, and still are, a large number of societies
among the Norwegian Americans, Of special importance are the
various bygdelag, or societies, of the immigrants who have come from
some particular province in Norway together with such of their
descendants as retain an interest in the old home. The Sons and
Daughters of Norway are fraternal orders, but inasmuch as Norwegian
Lutheranism has officially been opposed to secret societies, these
fraternities have supplied the organizational needs chiefly of the im-
migrants whose religious interests have been weak or nonexistent;
they flourish almost only in the cities. None of these secular societies
own much property. Their twofold patriotic character is evidenced
by the fact that among the first and second generations, May 17 and
July 4, national holidays in Norway and America, respectively, have
been celebrated with equal democratic fervor in the denser settle-
ments. However, the third generation almost never observes May 17.
Naturalization. Very few Norwegian immigrants have been sub-
ject to conscious Americanization influences. Nevertheless, their
assimilation has been comparatively rapid. Generally they have been
quick to learn the English language as spoken in America; at least they
have usually developed a kind of pidgin English by a liberal admixture
of Eng lish with Norwegian, and Norwegians in Norway have learned
not to expect the returned emigrattt to speak pure Norwegian. Only
in the most densely populated Norwegijan settlements, where almost
every family is of that stock, has the Norwegian language preserved
itself alongside the English. Today it is rapidly disappearing even
diere. Politically and socially the assimilation has been almost com-
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
58
plete in- the second generation. The responsibilities of democracy
were not new to any of the Norwegian immigrants, for the Consti-
tution of May 17, 1814, for a long time the most democratic funda-
mental law in Europe, was read and memorized almost as much as the
Bible. Furthermore, the rise of the peasant party in Norway after
1830 and the labor movement of 1848-1851 had given many immi-
grants democratic pohtical training and convictions before they ever
set foot on these shores. According to the census of 1930, of all
foreign-bom residents in the United States, 55.8 per cent were
naturalized; but of all Norwegian-bom residents, 70.9 per cent were
naturalized, and 29,954, or an additional 8.3' per cent, had taken out
their first papers. In 1940, the national figure was 64.6 per cent and
that for the Norwegian-born was 75.2 per cent.
Comparatively few Norwegian Americans have remmed to Nor-
way. The Norwegian statistics indicate that only about 17,700 did
so between 1871 and 1910, and that the members of this group were
more than twice as likely as the average Norwegian to possess private
means of support at the age of sixty-five. The Norwegian Emigra-
tion Commission in 1912 adduced evidence to show that, particularly
in the province of Lister and Mandal and in the southern provinces
generally, to which a considerably larger number returned than to
other parts of the country, the influence of the repatriated Norwegian
Americans had been noteworthy. They had learned in America
more progressive methods in agriculture, a higher standard of living,
and a more rapid rate of work; these had in turn been taught to the
remainder of the population. The same commission estimated the
amount of money sent home annually by Norwegian Americans at
$ 10 , 000 , 000 .
Norzi^egian Americans and World War II. The conquest of
Norway by the Nazis in 1940, the sufferings and the heroic resistance
of the Norwegian people, and the great contributions of the Nor-
wegian merchant marine to the cause of the United Nations aroused
the intense sympathy of Norwegian immigrants and their descendants
in America. Contributions poured into the coffers of the Nor-
wegian-American Relief Association. Money was also given to
support Little Norway in Canada, where young Norwegian refugees
were trained for aerial combat. Through these activities, many have
renewed their consciousness of descent from a proud and free people.
Contributions to American Life
There is hardly any aspect of American life to which Norwegian
immigrants and their offspring have failed to contribute. They
NORWEGIAN AMERICANS
59
helped to push back the frontier, fought the Indians, and established
farms and hamlets. They shared largely in developing the fishing
industry and contributed to the evolution of American seamanship.
Commerce and industry have profited by their participation, as
have every one of the professions — law, medicine, and engineering.
They have promoted American education and achieved success in
the realm of scholarship. As newspapermen and authors Norwegian-
American names are known throughout the world. They have made
notable contributions to American politics and statesmanship. They
have been here so long and are now so well assimilated that they
are hardly distinguishable from native American stock, with which
they are rapidly intermarrying.
Space permits only a brief description of the careers of a few of
them — a list that could be multiphed many times.
Laur. Larsen (1833—1915) came to America in 1857 when he ac-
cepted a call to serve a Norwegian- American congregation in Fillmore
County, Minnesota. Already there was much discussion among the
Norwegian Lutherans in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa,
of the need for a college to prepare young men for the study of
theology, and Laur. Larsen became the first president of Luther
College when it was founded in 1861. He remained in that position
until 1902, during which time his influence upon the course of edu-
cation, and no less upon the reh^ous development, among the Nor-
wegian immigrants and their children, was exceedingly important.
Knute Nelson (1876-1931) was elected county attorney in 1872
and advanced through various stages to become governor of Miime-
sota (1892-1895), the first Norwegian to hold that office in the
United States, and United States senator (1895-1923), the first of a
number of Norwegian Americans to be admitted to that body.
The misdirected “Americanization” fury during World War I
aroused the fears of O. E. Rolvaag (1876-1931) that the Norwegians
in America might surrender their old-world culture before they were
ready to adopt that of the United States; consequently, he began to
write for them, in the Norwegian language, the epic of their adjust-
ment to the American scene, particularly Giants in the Earth. This
book in 1925 placed Rolvaag in the front rank of those who have
immortalized the pioneer movement. From then until his death he
occupied a leading place in both Norwegian and American hterature.
Only two others can be named: Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929)
and Victor Lawson (1850-1925). Veblen was born in a Norwegian
settlement in Wisconsin, of immigrant parents. He is unquestion-
ably one of the greatest economists so far produced in the United
6o
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
States, and has deeply influenced philosophers, historians, and sociol-
ogists. Victor Lawson was a journalist and financier. He inherited
an interest in the Norwegian newspaper, Skandimven. In January,
1876, the Chicago Daily News began to appear from the same build-
ing as Skandinaven, and within six months Victor Lawson had pur-
chased it. Under his able management, the News prospered, and
Lawson became a power in American journalism. He led the Asso-
ciated Press out of a serious crisis and exercised a great influence upon
the handling of foreign news. Lawson became very wealthy, and
distinguished himself by his philanthropy and his civic leadership.
D. SWEDISH AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
Early in the seventeenth century William Usselinx of Antwerp,
attracted by the success of the Dutch traders in America and by
reports of the opportunities awaiting there, endeavored to form
a company for purposes of trade and settlement. Failing in this, he
went to Sweden and secured from Gustavus Adolphus valuable trad-
ing concessions, although at this time the kmg was so deeply in-
volved in the struggles of the Thirty Years’ War that he could give
no further attention to the plan. At the instance of Usselinx, a com-
mercial company with exclusive privileges to traffic beyond the
Straits of Gibraltar and with the right of planting colonies was sanc-
tioned by the king on June 14, 1626. The stock was open to all
Europe for subscription, and the king himself pledged $400,000 from
the royal treasury. Then in May, 1630, Adolphus decided to invade
Germany, and the funds of the company were arbitrarily confiscated
for war purposes. But at Nuremberg, on October 6, 1632, only a
few days before the battle of Lutzen, the enterprise was recom-
mended to the people of Germany.
After Adolphus’s death, his daughter Christina listened to similar
plans presented by Peter Minuit, a former governor of New Nether-
lands who knew something of the prospects offered by the lands on
the South River. On December 31, 1637, an expedition consisting
of two ships, the Kalmar Nyckel and the Qripen, sailed from Sweden
under the command of Minuit with a mixed batch of Swedish, Dutch,
and Finnish settlers on board. The Swedish government had supplied
the emigrants with a religious teacher, provisions, and merchandise
for traffic with the natives. Minuit entered the Delaware River about
the middle of March in 1638 and selected a site for his venture on
SWEDISH AMERICANS 6 i
the high ground of a branch of that ’stream. The territory lying
between the southern cape — which the immigrants named Paradise
Point — and the falls in the river at Trenton, was purchased from the
natives. Near the mouth of Christiana Creek, within the limits of the
present state of Delaware, Fort Christina was founded and named
after the child who was queen of Sweden. This was the beginning
of what later developed into the city of Wilmington.
Peter Hollender succeeded Minuit as governor of New Sweden.
He arrived with a second expedition in the spring of 1 640 and brought
additional settlers. In October of the following year, a third expedi-
tion landed with more settlers and supplies. The religious welfare
of the colony was in the hands of the Reverend Reorus Torkillus,
first Lutheran minister in America. In 1643 a fourth expedition
arrived under the command of John Printz, who had been appointed
to succeed Hollender as governor.
Word of the loveliness of the country had been borne to Scandi-
navia, and the peasantry of Sweden and Finland were eager to ex-
change their farms in Europe for homes on the Delaware. The
Swedes had gradually extended their plantations, and when the
Dutch rebuilt their fort at Nassau, Printz established his residence on
the island of Tinicum, a few miles below Philadelphia, in 1 643. The
latter city, like Delaware, owes its origin to the Swedes, who had
planted a suburb of Philadelphia before WiUiam Penn became its
proprietor. New Sweden developed on the Bay and the River
Delaware.
In 1653 Queen Christina gave Sven Schute the area now occupied
by Philadelphia. The Indians called the district “Coaquannock,” and
it included not only what is now the center of the city but also parts
later known as Moyamensing, Wicac, and Passyunk. This land came
into the possession of the Svenssons, from whom Penn secured it.
Printz ruled the colony ably for ten years. During this time, the
Dutch were growing more aggressive and he had received no
communication from Sweden for several years. His patience ex-
hausted, he took matters into his own hands, and in the autumn of
1653 he left for Sweden in company with about twenty-five colonists.
In the meantime, the Swedish Council, ignorant of his departure and
aroused by his reports, determined to send the tenth expedition, which
was intended to save the colony from ruin.
This expedition, under the command of Johan Qasson Risingh,
with 350 immigrants on board, reached the Delaware on May 20,
1654. Risingh forced the surrender of Fort Casimir, the Dutch head-
62
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
quarters on the river. But his request for the oath of allegiance from
the handful of Dutch colonists precipitated a crisis destined to result
in the downfall of New Sweden.
When Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Netherlands, heard
of the reduction of the fort, he swore vengeance and forced Risingh
in turn to surrender on September i6, 1655. The articles of capitula-
tion provided that such Swedes as desired to return to their home
country would be transported free of expense, while those who wished
to remain could do so on condition of swearing allegiance to the
Dutch government. They were to retain their property and the
right to maintain their customary religious observances. In view of
these liberal terms, all but thirty-seven of the Swedish settlers elected
to remain, but the colony of New Sweden was no more, and the
Dutch ruled on the Delaware.
Swedish supremacy on the Delaware had lasted from 1638 to 1655,
a period of seventeen years. To it is to be attributed the introduc-
tion to the new world of the language and institutions of Sweden.
The Swedes were the real pioneers in Pennsylvania. They built the
first houses, founded the first churches, established the first civil
government, held the first courts, cultivated the first farms, imported
the first livestock — ^in general were the first to introduce white civi-
hzation. Though the Swedes feU prey to the Dutch, and the Dutch
in turn were obliged to yield to the English nine years later, they
maintained for long their farms and institutions. The Swedish gov-
ernment continued to send Lutheran pastors to the new world, and
these acted as disseminators of the Swedish cultural pattern.
Modern Immigration
Swedes constituted a minor element in the tide of migration from
1655 nineteenth century. During the first forty years of
that century, only a few Swedes landed in America, and these were
mostly sailors, businessmen, and adventurers. About 1840, interest
in America began to increase rather rapidly in Sweden, stimulated
largely by the press, by literature, and by general discussion in which
America was idealized. The result was sporadic emigration of the
educated class, especially among the academic youth. The Pine
Lake colony was founded not far from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by
Gustaf Unonius of Uppsala. Another university town, Lund, con-
tributed Ludvig Kumhen, whose party settled in Wisconsin on
Koshkoning Lake, some forty miles from Madison. Several other
expeditions followed. In 1 849 a band of about 140 persons came from
SWEDISH AMERICANS
63
northern Sweden, accompanied by Pastor L. P. Esbjom, who was to
become the founder of the Augustana Synod, the largest Swedish
church organization in America. Larger and larger groups went to
Chicago. In 1850 religious pressure brought another group from
northern Sweden, members of a sect known as Luthlasare (Luther
Readers). The followers of Erick Janson, about 1,500 strong, went
to the United States between 1845-1854, and founded a communistic
settlement at Bishop HiU, Illinois. The first Baptist church of Amer-
ican Swedes was founded in 1852 by the Baptists who had also come
into conflict with the home authorities. After 1848 the various
groups become too numerous to be enumerated in detail. Group
migration was the rule till about i860.
The majority of the earlier Swedish immigrants were recruited from
among the classes that felt attracted to America for reasons other
than economic, although a reasonable assurance of economic success
was essential. In the subsequent period economic motives predomi-
nated, intertwined with political, social, religious, and other factors.
The period preceding immigration on a large scale extended ap-
proximately from 1840 to i860. More and more knowledge of
America was brought to the attention of prospective immigrants.
The great adventure was made increasingly attractive by improved
communications and financial assistance rendered by relatives. A
special permit for emigration was no longer required in Sweden after
1842. Immigrants began to journey by way of England and later
on German boats. Safer traveling obviated the previous necessity
of migrating in groups. In addition, about i860 the agrarian cul-
tivated area of Sweden could no longer expand quickly enough to
keep pace with the increasing population. The difficulties of the
Swedish peasants were further accentuated by a series of crop failures.
Emigration rose to an unprecedented height. Whereas the industrial
element among the emigrants amounted to only a fifth of the agrarian
during the fifties, in the eighties it increased to a third and in the first
decade of the twentieth century to a half. During the last thirty
years a new current of members of the learned professions has set in,
sprinkled with celebrities and leaders in different professions attracted
to America by the great opportunities for advancement and financial
remuneration.
It must not be forgotten that the waves of immigration into
America have alternated with periods of migration in the reverse
direction from America to Sweden. These return movements accom-
panied the series of American crises in 1884, 1903, and 1907. The
64
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
American immigration law of 1924 is the turning point in the history
of Swedish immigration. Even so, 42,119 Swedes were admitted to
America between 1925 and 1929 and only 5,689 returned home.
From 1820 to 1940 the total number of Swedes admitted to the
United States was 1,213,488. In 1940, the United States census
showed 595,250 foreign-bom Swedes and 967,453 American-born
Swedes of Swedish foreign or mixed parentage — ^in all 1,562,703.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Occupations. A majority of American Swedes live in urban areas.
Those who landed here in the first decade of the nineteenth century
settled in the West and Northwest. They left their homeland during
a time of religious unrest, and this circumstance may have contributed
to their tendency to segregate themselves. So greatly did they desire
isolation that they selected their lands in the wilderness, in the most
inaccessible places, and put up their log cabins in the wild forests.
Yet in a decade or so their settlements became prosperous farms and
dwellings. The Swedish Americans have cleared and cultivated more
than ten million acres in the United States. In Minnesota alone they
have brought two million acres under cultivation, and in Minnesota,
Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, the Dakotas, and Kansas whole counties
are almost entirely Swedish. They have a facility for using inventions
and labor-saving devices and were the first of the American farming
population to adopt electric light. They are excellent horticulturists,
landscape gardeners, fruit growers, and nurserymen. They are in-
terested in consumers’ cooperatives, but are by nature small capitalists
and property owners, with a marked respect for individual property
rights.
Less than one fourth of the Swedish Americans work in the skilled
trades as carpenters, tool-makers, and electricians. Their sons and
the sons of farmers have already passed into the more exalted profes-
sions of college and university teaching, of engineering and architec-
ture, and the business of contracting and manufacture. Many of
them hold leading positions in furniture factories and in the lumber
business.
Religion. The majority of Swedish Americans are members of the
Lutheran Augustana Synod. Immigration from Sweden in the
seventeenth century left its mark on both the political and religious
life of America. Several of the churches which the early immigrants
from the North built are still in existence, though no longer affiliated
to the Lutheran Church. A much stronger influx of immigrants in
SWEDISH AMERICANS
65
the last century brought Swedish religious organization to the shores
of America. The first of the congregations of the Augustana Synod
to be organized was that in New Sweden, Henry County, Iowa, in
1 848, and the second was in Andover, Henry County, Illinois, in 1850.
The same year Swedish Lutheran congregations were organized in
Galesburg and Moline, Illinois. At that time there were some groups
of Swedish Methodists in America. They enjoyed the support of
the Methodist Church in the United States, and the wealthy Episcopal
Church was ready to take under its wing pilgrim children of an
episcopal country. On June 5, 1850, the Scandinavian Evangelical
Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America was organized in
Clinton, Wisconsin. The Augustana Seminary was founded at
Chicago but was eventually removed to Paxton, Illinois.
In 1872 and 1875 the onslaughts of “Waldenstromianism,” sup-
ported by the Congregationahsts, brought civil war into the church
of Sweden and the synod. In the midst of the tumult, the Augustana
College and Theological Seminary was removed from Paxton to Rock
Island, Illinois, in order to be nearer Minnesota, then the stronghold
of the Swedes in America. In 1894 the synod dropped the word
“Scandinavian” from its name and thenceforth became known as
the Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America, or, in
brief, the Augustana Synod. This synod was a part of the General
Council, but formally withdrew from the council on November 12,
1918, and declined to enter an amalgamation of the General Synod,
the General Council, and the United Synod of the South, by which
was formed the United Lutheran Church in America.
In the early days of the synod, the Swedish language was used.
Today about 75 per cent of its members are native bom or landed
in America in early childhood, and the English language is used almost
exclusively in the work among the children and the young. More
than half the services held for adults, however, are in the language of
their homeland.
The synod has one theological school, Augustana Theological Semi-
nary, at Rock Island, Illinois. Augustana College, at the same place,
is the oldest and strongest college of the synod and is owned and con-
trolled by the synod as a whole. There are three other standard col-
leges, two junior colleges, and two academies, which are owned
and controlled by individual conferences, namely Gustavus Adolphus
College at St. Peter, Minnesota, Bethany at Lindsborg, Kansas, famous
for its music festivals, and Uppsala College at East Orange, New
Jersey.
66
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
Swedish immigration to the United States was also encouraged by
the Baptist, Mormon, and Methodist churches. The Baptists were
very different from the Lutherans and their persecution led many to
come to America. The Mormons settled in Utah in such large num-
bers that a law was passed prohibiting their importation to that state.
A considerable number of Swedish Americans are affiliated with the
church known as the Mission Friends, which supports a college at
North Park, in Chicago.
The press. Although in the Swedish and Danish press secular in-
terests are more prominent than in the Norwegian, the church has
played a considerable role in Swedish journalism. Notwithstanding
the relatively early rise of secular interests among the Swedish Amer-
icans, all the early Swedish- American papers were religious in nature.
In fact, prior to 1866 no successful attempt had been made to start a
Swedish newspaper that was not the organ of some church denomi-
nation. The first successful step to found a secular periodical not
under the domination of the church was taken when Colonel Hans
Matson, later secretary of state in Minnesota, became editor of the
Svenska Amerikanaren. In general it was difficult to secure an editor
for a secular newspaper, as most Swedish Americans with more than
a common-school education were in the church either as teachers or
ministers.
All in all, about twelve hundred Swedish newspapers have been
established in the United States, about a fourth of which were in
existence in 1910. During and after World War I the mortality rate
was high as evidenced by the fact that more than a hundred Swedish
papers have been started in Chicago alone. The Augustana is the
most important Swedish-American publishing house and has pub-
lished more than four hundred books in the Swedish language. Most
of these books are of a religious and philosophical nature and are
full of devotional poetry.
Organizations. Among the fraternal orders the most important is
the Vasa, with about 60,000 members. In addition there are many
other fraternal organizations and hundreds of glee clubs and sing-
ing societies, such as the United Swedish Societies of Greater New
York, the American Society of Swedish Engineers, the Scandinavian
Fraternity of America, the American Union of Swedish Engineers,
the Scandinavian Fraternity of America, and the American Union of
Swedish Singers. A unique contribution of the Swedes is the choral
and instrumental music society of the Swedish community of Linds-
borg, Kansas, the chorus of which is composed of local people.- Part
SWEDISH AMERICANS
67
of the orchestra is also recruited from the neighborhood — farmers
and small businessmen. The yearly performance of Handel’s
“Messiah” oratorio by the Messiah Chorus of the Lindsborg Choir
is one of the musical events of the year. Swedish folk dances are
now taught in almost all the schools of the larger cities, and Ling
gymnastics still have great vogue in America.
Swedish Aviericans and World War 11 . In 1942, Fortune reported
that “though interventionist Carl Sandburg is (Norwegians’ and
Swedes’) greatest pride, the 1,400,000 first- and second-generation
Swedes in the United States still stand for whatever is left of Midwest’s
specific isolationism. Stronger only than their anti-Russian feeling
is their ready understanding of Sweden’s ‘realistic’ attempt to avoid
Nazi invasion by voluntary, though limited, collaboration with the
Reich.” ^ But, since American “Wedes are sincere democrats and
good citizens” they had been willing to comply with the United States
government’s orders and produced what was wanted of them —
“except enthusiasm.”
Contributions to America
The Vinland Saga relates that when Karlsefne was in America,
about 1008, a son whom he named Snorre was bom to him and his
wife Gudrid, the widow of Thomstien, who was Leif Ericson’s
brother. Snorre is claimed to be the first white child ever bom in
America, and, as the Saga states that Karlsefne was partly of Swedish
descent, it follows according to this source that the first white person
ever bom in America was of Swedish extraction. A statue of Karl-
sefne was raised in Philadelpliia in 1920.
The Swedes founded the state of Delaware and were among the
earliest settlers of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. When
at a most critical stage of the War of Independence, Washington
crossed the Delaware River with his army to attack the Hessians at
Trenton, his boats were manned by descendants of the Swedes who
had settled in that district 140 years before. Others served through-
out the Revolution.
In connection with the signing of the Declaration of Independence,
the name of John Morton (also claimed to be a Norwegian), descend-
ant of a Swedish settler in New Sweden on the Delaware, stands out
with special prominence. The Continental Congress of 177^5 when
the momentous question of severing relations with England by an
1 “Steam from the Melting Pot,” Fortum, September, 1942, p. 76.
68
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
overt act of signing and proclaiming the Declaration of Independence
was under consideration, had come to a deadlock. Two of the five
members of the Pennsylvania delegation had voted for it and two
against it, thus leaving the Pennsylvania delegation tied. John
Morton, the fifth member of the delegation, had been too ill to attend
the Congress. His friends rigged up a litter borne between two
horses and carried Morton from liis home to where the Congress
was in session. He cast his vote for the Declaration, which was
proclaimed on July 4, i 77 < 5 * Morton was one of the men who signed
this historic document. In 1876 a memorial tablet was erected to
him in Independence Hall and a beautiful building, called after him,
“John Morton Memorial,” was set up in his honor in Philadelphia,
1926-19x9.
Another distinguished patriot of the American Revolutionary pe-
riod, also of Swedish descent, was John Hanson of Maryland. He
filled one public post after another until he was finally elected “Presi-
dent of the United States in Congress Assembled” and served as such
from November 5, 1781, to November 5, 1782. His statue in
Statuary Hall in the national Capital was placed there by the state of
Maryland on January 31, 1903.
The contributions of Swedes in those early days also extended to
the realm of art. Gustaf Hesselius who arrived in Philadelphia in
17 1 1 has been called “the father of American painting.” Adolf
Ulrick Wertmuller painted the famous portrait of George Washing-
ton during his second term as president.
In religion and culture the Swedish colonial settlers took a promi-
nent place. Of the three churches remaining from the colonial period
before 1700, and which are still in regular use, two are Swedish:
Gloria Dei (Old Swedes) in Philadelphia, and the Trinity (Old
Swedes) Church, in Wilmington, Delaware; the third is the EngKsh
St. Lucas Church, Isle of Wight County, Virginia.
The Civil War again brought to the front Swedes and men of
Swedish ancestry: Captain John Ericsson, born in Sweden in 1803,
Admiral J. A. Dahlgren and his son Colonel Oscar Malmborg, Colonel
Hans Mattson, and others. Thanks to the engineer Captain Ericsson,
the engagement between the Monitor and the Merrimac at Hampton
Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1 862, marked a definite epoch not only
in the naval operations of the Civil War, but more broadly in the
world aspects of warship design and construction. Although the
design of the Monitor as a type of warship and the introduction of
the screw propeller were the outstanding achievements of Ericsson’s
SWEDISH AMERICANS 69
career, he made many other contributions to the art and practice of
engineering in his day.
Other great Swedes or men of Swedish lineage have made their con-
tributions to America. In Minneapolis may be seen a grotesque and
magnificent structure known colloquially as Turnblad’s Castle, and
officially as the American Institute of Swedish Arts, Literature, and
Science. It was built by the late Swan Johan Tumblad, a Swedish
peasant boy immigrant who went to Minnesota in i860 when there
were still virgin forests and Indians. He came in the steerage, but
before he died he was a multimillionaire. His “castle” is now a
superb cultural institute and museum, where lectures, concerts,
symposiums, and exhibitions are organized. The University of
Minnesota has several outstanding Swedish- American scholars; Pro-
fessors A. A. Stomberg and G. M. Stephenson are distinguished mem-
bers of its history department.
The Swede John Johnson, rail splitter, laborer, printer, governor,
and senator, was a great figure in American politics, and Colonel
Hans Mattson of Minnesota was the first of the long list of Minnesota
Swedes in government service. Charles A. Lindbergh, father of the
famous airman, was bom in Stockholm.
The Swede Greta Garbo is well known in the cinema world.
Equally well known in the nineteenth century was Jenny Lind, the
celebrated Swedish singer brought to America by Bamum. Her
tradition is carried on by such members of the Metropolitan Opera
in New York as Kristina Nilsson, Onegin, Claussen, and Gustav
Holmquist. In sculpture, Carl Milles is a Swede. Carl Sandburg
is considered by many to be the greatest aU-American poet since Walt
Whitman.
Nor should we forget to mention the famous airship navigator
Commander Charles Rosendahl, also of Swedish descent; Johanssen^
who invented the gauge by which the whole world now measures steel
to the half millionth of an inch; Erich Nelson, Swedish engineer of the
first United States Army flight around the world; Marjorie Gestring,
Olympic diving champion, of Swedish descent; Helen Wills Moody,
purportedly part Swedish; Claude Swanson, secretary of the Navy;
and E. F. W. Alexanderson, consulting engineer of the General
Electric Company, who was bom in Sweden.
The list of notable Swedish- American educators is very long. In
colonial days. Dr. Nils Collin, one of the Swedish pastors in Phila-
delphia, was for a time a director of the University of Pennsylvania.
Scholars of Swedish lineage are very numerous. Professor Thorsten
70 “OLD” IMMIGRATION
Sellin of the University of Pennsylvania is one of the best-known
specialists in criminology; in addition to being editor of the Annals,
he has shaped the policies of that important organ of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science for a number of years.
Fryxell and Udden are well known in geology, Alexanderson in
electrotechnics, Odegard and Sandelius in pohtical science. Seashore
and Wallin in education, and Bergendorf in theology. Physiologist
Anton Julius Carlson of the University of Chicago, bom on a farm
in Sweden, is the author of a classic book. The Control of Hunger in
Health and Disease (1916), and on his theories other scientists worked
out diets for infant feeding, gastric ulcers, and so on.^
The Swedish Americans, like the rest of the Scandinavian Americans,
fit well into the cultural life of America. Their lot today is much
easier than that of immigrants from other Baltic (Poland, Estonia,
Latvia) and eastern European countries. When the influx of Swedes
into America was at its height, there was no such tremendous differ-
ence between the environment of the European peasant in his native
land and in America as there is today. The fact that most of them
settled in rural districts and not in the slums of America’s cities was
an added advantage. Unlike the immigrants from central and eastern
Europe, the Swedes did not bring with them what Professor Miller
has called the “oppression psychosis” — the product of past struggles
for national existence which strengthened ethnocentric tendencies in
the religion, language, and customs of such immigrants as shared it.
Consequently the Swedes have found it much easier to adapt them-
selves to American culture. In this process they have been helped
by the fact that their religion is Lutheranism, a form of Protestantism.
Since their adjustment to the American environment has been
favored by every circumstance, the Swedish Americans have been
able to produce an unusually large number of great men. Further-
more, since the Swedes belong to the “old” immigrant movement, the
second and subsequent generations have been in a position to push
rapidly ahead in America, a process less easy for descendants of the
“new” immigration. The transition from one culture to another, and
from one personality to another, is a process that requires not only
time but demands the cooperation of both groups. Even in this
last respect, the Swedish Americans are fortunate in enjoying the
guidance of such distinguished institutions as the American-Scandi-
navian Foundation.
2Cf.: “Scientist’ Scientist,” Time, XXXVII (February 10, 1941), pp. 44-48.
DANISH AMERICANS
71
E. DANISH AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
Although large-scale migration from Denmark to the United
States did not set in until the middle of the nineteenth century, Danes
were connected with the discovery of America and active in the
affairs of the colonies from the beginning.
Although no authentic record exists, a Polish authority states that
as early as 1475 Jan of Kolno, a Polish sailor in the service of the Idng
of Denmark, reached Labrador and explored the Atlantic seaboard as
far south as the present coast of Delaware. It is quite certain, more-
over, that there were Danes on board Henry Hudson’s ship, and that
Danes were present on the Half Moon when Hudson met the Indians
at the mouth of Menaten (now Manhattan) Island in 1 609.
In 1 61 1, a Dane, Captain Henry Christiansen, set sail from the West
Indies in a Dutch vessel, voyaged to New York, and took back skins
and com to Holland. When he returned in 1613 he was accom-
panied by a partner, one Adrian Block. The Fortune and the Tiger,
the two vessels commanded by Christiansen and Block, voyaged to and
from America about ten times. Christiansen died in 1614. Block
subsequently lost the Tiger off Battery Place, and accordingly built
four log houses at about the site of what is now 39 Broadway, New
York City. This was the beginning of New Amsterdam.
As news of the country Henry Hudson had discovered reached the
king of Denmark, he decided to establish a colony in the new land
and dispatched Captain Jens Munk with two small ships to America.
The captain left Denmark in May, 1619, landed in the Hudson Bay
country, and took possession of the land in the name of the king of
Denmark. This was just a few months before the landing of the
Pilgrim Fathers. As the immigrants from England gave the name
“New England” to the colony that they founded, so Captain Munk
designated his colony Nova Dania (New Denmark) . Extreme hard-
ship, severe sickness, and the hostility of Indians quickly put an end
to this first Danish colony in America.
Jonas Bronck, Jochim Petersen, and their families and friends
reached New Amsterdam in 1639. The party sailed up the river,
past the island of Manhattan, and landed on the end of the main-
land. Both Petersen and Bronck purchased land from the Indians,
the former establishing his settlement along what is now the Harlem
River, a valuable tract in Westchester “over against Harlem,” and
72
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
Bronck establishing his between what are now called the Harlem and
the Bronx rivers. As the colonies grew, the territory on which they
were located came to be known as “Bronck’s land,” and thus the
name Bronx came in time to be applied to one of the boroughs of
New York City.
A number of sailors on Dutch vessels soon afterward abandoned sea
life and settled in the Bronx, forming an exclusively Danish com-
munity. This small group was subsequently merged with the Dutch
population living around them, but in succeeding years so many
Danes arrived in large numbers that they were able to keep their
national characteristics for a much longer period.
Other prominent names appeared; Andreas Dreyer was the Dutch
governor in Albany in 1673-1674. General Hans Christian Febiger
(1746-1796), born on the Island of Funen, Denmark, retired from
the American Army and was brevetted brigadier-general by Congress
on September 30, 1783. Settling in Philadelphia, he was elected and
remained treasurer of Pennsylvania from 1789 to 1796. Abraham
Markoe, from the West Indies, also fought in the American War for
Independence; he is said to have given the red and white stripes to the
American flag. Another Dane, Peter Lassen, was one of the earliest
explorers of the Far West, and he is commemorated today in the
name of Mount Lassen in California.
Many Danes continued to arrive as individual immigrants. A num-
ber of them settled in the Swedish colony of “New Sweden” in Penn-
sylvania, and others who belonged to the Moravian Church found
their way to the Moravian Brethren’s colonies in Pennsylvania and
North Carolina.
The Danish navigator, Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681-1741), born
at Horsens in Jutland, discovered America on the west. From 1725
till the time of his death he conducted a series of explorations and in
the course of these led an expedition to America in two ships, both
of which he had built. A storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted
the southern coast of Alaska and made a landing in the vicinity of
Kayak Island. Making haste to return, he inadvertently discovered
several of the Aleutian Islands. When he had fallen sick with scurvy
and was unable to command his ship, his expedition was driven to
take refuge on an uninhabited island in the southwest of the Bering
Sea. Here he and many of his company died on December 19, 1741.
Bering Island and Sea and Straits were named after him.
DANISH AMERICANS
73
Modern Immigration
The early immigrants were mostly adventurers, merchants, and
sailors. The peasants in Denmark were long compelled by law to
remain the whole of their lives in the locality in which they were
born. Not until the late eighteenth century were they given the
right to live where they pleased. This fact is of vital importance in
connection with Danish immigration.
When in 1825 Norwegian farmers first emigrated to America,
their example was soon followed in Denmark, and in 1828 about
one hundred Danish immigrants landed in the United States. Be-
tween 1830 and 1840 the number swelled to over one thousand, of
whom approximately one half arrived in 1835. In the following
decade five hundred settlers arrived, of whom one hundred reached
their destination in 1846 and two hundred in 1848. Most of these
early groups had to charter their own ships.
The first Danish immigrants who came to settle permanently in
America were almost entirely from the country districts. Their first
permanent settlement was founded in 1845 in Wakauska County
(southern Wisconsin), not far from the town of Milwaukee. Three
years later New Denmark was settled farther north in the territory.
Within the next decade there were half a dozen rapidly growing
Danish communities in that state. Of these the most important was
Racine, which in time was to be known as the Dane city and as a
center of Danish cultural activities throughout the Middle West.
At the same time Danes appeared in the eastern and mid-western
cities. After saving money, they frequently went westward, and, in
company with fresh arrivals from Denmark, built up larger settle-
ments in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.
Danish immigration to Minnesota began even before the latter’s organ-
ization as a territory. Independent in other things, the Danish
pioneers were independent in settling, for instead of collecting at a
few places they scattered widely. The large settlement in Freeborn
County, however, owed much to its early leader, the Reverend Lars
Jorgsen Hange, who in the eighteen-sixties and -seventies directed
a considerable number of Baptists to that part of the state. The Swan
Lake settlement is still one of the largest Danish settlements in the
United States. The first Danes arrived in Iowa in i860. Consider-
able numbers of Danes settled in Utah during the fifties, sixties, and
seventies. Later a few larger settlements were founded in Cali-
fornia, Oregon, and Washington. The whole movement was stim-
74
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
ulated, at least in part, by the favorable conditions in America at the
time. The Homestead Act of 1 862 and the construction of railways
in the trans-Mississippi West were excellent inducements. The
western railways began to encourage immigration by scattering agents
throughout Europe to spread propaganda for the northern Pacific
lands. It is interesting to note that, with the exception of Dannevang,
Texas, none of the larger Danish settlements were situated in the
southern states.
In the eighteen-fifties began the great stream of Danish immigration
which reached its highest levels in 1882, 1891, and 1905, when respec-
tively about eleven, ten, and nine thousand emigrants from Denmark
entered the United States. A Danish sailor in America had previously
become a convert to the Mormon faith and was sent in 1850 by his
church as its missionary to Denmark. His followers were persecuted
in Denmark and therefore emigrated to join their coreligionists in
Utah. Many of the converts were farmers who wrote home of the
great opportunities to be found on American soil. From 1 850 to 1 860
four thousand Danish immigrants were admitted to the United States,
At least half of these were Mormons. All in all, between 1820 and
1940 Danish immigration totaled approximately 300,000. The great-
est number of arrivals in a single year (11,600) was recorded in
1882.
Causes of hnmigration. Religious and political persecution was
largely responsible for Danish immigration prior to 1870. Thereafter
economic pressure was the predominant factor. The Napoleonic
Wars brought a series of disasters to Denmark; the loss of the fleet
in 1807, the bankruptcy of the National Bank in 1813, and the seces-
sion of Norway in 1814. Social and political agitation followed.
Freedom of speech, of the press, and of worship were given to Den-
mark only with the granting of the Constitution of 1849 by her last
absolute king. Prior to that document, the government had been un-
generous in religious matters. Children had to be baptized and con-
firmed in the established Lutheran faith. Whereas at the opening
of the nineteenth century there were no dissenters or non-Lutherans
in Denmark, at about the middle of the century small groups of dis-
senters — ^Baptists, Methodists, Latter-Day Saints, and Adventists,
some of which had been formed by missionaries sent by the corre-
sponding American churches — ^found emigration preferable to the
animosity of the Danish authorities. Among the early immigrants
were a number of Baptists, who had suffered severe persecution at
home, and a few Methodists and Adventists.
DANISH AMERICANS
75
Another important flow of immigration was set in motion by
the Mormon missionaries who arrived in Denmark in 1850 and soon
made hundreds of converts. Between 1850 and i860 no less than
2,606 Mormon colonies were estabhshed in the West — the forerunners
of the thirty thousand Danes who later came to Utah. Since the
Mormons did not carry on missionary work among other Danish
immigrants, they exercised httle religious influence on the Danish
immigrants except in Utah.
After 1864 another contingent of Danish immigrants entered Amer-
ica. The “Elbe Duchies” of Sclileswig and Holstein were seized
by Prussia after the second Dano-German War of 1864, and many
chose to leave their country rather than to hve under their new
masters.
The Socialist Party started its activities in Denmark about 1871,
but its leaders were soon imprisoned. Many left for the new world.
However, the number of Danes who migrated to America for political
reasons comprised only a minor part of the influx; since 1 870 economic
reasons have been far more prominent than have any others.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Occupations. Many of the early immigrants had originally been
agricultural laborers and small farmers. Later they represented prac-
tically all classes. A large number came from the Jutland Peninsula
and from Zealand and other islands. In the seventies and eighties,
young unmarried men and women constituted a considerable propor-
tion of these immigrants. Later, young unmarried men and women
predominated. There were urban laborers, but more especially
farm laborers, cotters (husmaend), and a large number of skilled
mechanics. Practically all of them could read and write, and a
number of them had been educated at folk high schools; many of the
men had also attended technical schools. Toward the close of the
century and up to World War I, the majority of these latter were
mechanics. Most of the later arrivals were unmarried men and
women who took up residence in the cities rather than in rural dis-
tricts. Only a limited number had enjoyed a higher education, since
the well-to-do or especially gifted alone could afford such training.
Many stayed in cities simply because they were unable to raise the
traveling expenses for the journey from New York farther west.
Perth Amboy, just outside of New York, seems to have had a
great attraction for these Danes, possibly because of the large terra-
cotta works owned there by the Mathiasen and Eskesen families.
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
76
Others found their way to the growing cities of the Middle West.
Once settled, large numbers left the rural districts for such cities as
Chicago, Detroit, Omaha, Seattle, and Los Angeles, where large
colonies of Danes are congregated, and for some of the smaller towns,
such as Racine in Wisconsin and Clinton and Des Moines in Iowa.
According to the United States census of 1930, 50.7 per cent of
Danish Americans were living in urban districts, one of the lowest
figures for any immigrant group in America.
Religions divisions. The first Danish minister in America was
Pastor Rasmus Jensen, who arrived at Nova Dania, Hudson Bay, in
1620. In 1754 J. M. Magens, a noted layman, came to New York
and translated from the Danish into English forty sermons on the
Augsburg Confession. In 1843 a student named C. L. Clausen
arrived from Copenhagen and was ordained by the Buffalo Synods.
In 1869 the Society for the Promotion of the Gospel among the Danes
in North America was formed, and two years later the first mission-
aries were sent over in the person of Pastor A. C. G. L. Rasmussen,
a lay preacher, A. S. Nielsen, and a student, R. Andersen. In 1870
the Norwegian-Danish Conference was organized.
Before proceeding further we must recall that the American Danes,
if they had been practicing Christians at home, had been Lutherans and
therefore attached either to the Innermission People — a body not
unlike the German Pietists — or to the Grundtvigians, a nationalistic
sect of Lutherans. A large proportion of the immigrants were
Grundtvigians, and their disagreements with the Innermission Peoples
in the United States form a well-documented chapter of Danish-
American history.’-
Before 1872 Danish Lutherans tended to become members of the
Norwegian-Lutheran synods, which had much in common with
the Innermission both in practice and creed. In 1856 the first Dano-
Norwegian Church was founded in Raymond, Wisconsin, by Louis
^The chief characteristic of the theology of Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig
(1783-1872) was the substitution of the authority of the “living word” for the
apostolic commentaries; he desired each congregation to constitute a practically
independent community. As a minister, he tried to restore what he termed old-
fashioned, vital Christianity and pure Lutheranism. He protested in turn against
the rationalism and the dogmatic liberalism of the church; he demanded a simpler
creed, a more abundant life, and greater religious freedom for laity and clergy.
His educational ideas were exemplified in numerous folk high schools working
successfully under state supervision in the more rural communities of Denmark.
Intensely patriotic, he founded popular schools where national poetry and history
form an essential part of the instruction. He was popular as a writer of hymns,
lyrics, and patriotic songs. The influence of his liberal movement has not been
confined to America.
DANISH AMERICANS
77
Jorgensen. Some of the pastors of these synods were Danes whom
the Innermission leaders had encouraged to emigrate.
The first step toward the formation of a Danish Church in America
was taken by the organization of the above-mentioned society in
Denmark, in i860, for the purpose of carrying out missionary work
among the American Danes, most of whom were Grundtvigians.
The society’s work consisted mainly in the selection and training of
ministers for Danish congregations in America, and in acting as an
advisory council to such ministers and congregations. In October,
1872, three representatives of the society — ^A. Dan, N. Thomsen and
R. Andersen — together with several Danish laymen, met at Neenah,
Wisconsin, and organized, under the name of Kirkelig Missions
Forening, what is now called the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America. At this meeting it was decided to publish a church maga-
zine, the Reverend A. Dan of Racine being elected its first editor.
The organization grew slowly as fresh Danish settlements were
formed, the church paying specific attention to the organization of
the new Danish colonies. Of the four colonies — ^in Shelby County,
Iowa; Lincoln County, Minnesota; Clark County, Wisconsin, and
Wharton County, Texas — the settlement in Iowa is most noteworthy
and successful. Since 1884 the Danish government has supported the
work by appropriating a small annual amount for the education of
ministers of the church.
Until World War I, the Danish language was used in all Danish
church work and exclusively in the church itself. But lately the use
of English has become general. Both churches are faced with the
pressure of Americanization and the passing of their original immi-
grant members. These trends have tended to encourage coopera-
tion between the two rival synods, and it is quite possible that in time
they may unite.
It is important to note that the Danish Church has not so strong
a grip on its sons and daughters as have, similar organizations among
Swedes and Norwegians.
Fraternal organizations. The most important of the various clubs
and fraternal organizations is the Danish Brotherhood of America
(Det danske Brodersamfund) , founded in 1882; it has 329 lodges and
between sixteen and seventeen thousand members. Other organiza-
tions include: the Danish Sisterhood of America {Det danske Soster-
sanrfund), organized in 1885, which embraces 148 lodges and has
from six to seven thousand members; the United Danish Societies
(De Sammensluttede danske Foreninger), founded in 1882, which
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
78
has thirty-two lodges and three thousand members; and Det danske
Forening Dania, of California, founded in 1879, which has twenty-
two branches in California and Nevada and some three thousand
members. Danish societies are recreational and cultural and possess
some of the benefit features of the secret societies. The local organ-
izations of the latter are organized chiefly in the larger cities, whereas
the Brotherhood forms local branches in both urban and rural districts.
Both have tried to use mainly the Danish language in their social
activities.
Of the smaller societies mention must be made of the Danish
People’s Society and the Danish American Association. The former
was created in 1887 by the Reverend F. L. Grundtvig, son of Bishop
N. F. S. Grundtvig, for the purpose of preserving the social heritage
of the Danish immigrants; the latter, founded in 1906, has to its credit
the establishment of a national park in the moorlands of Jutland,
Denmark, where the Fourth of July is celebrated each year under
both the Dmnebrog (the Danish flag) and the Star-Spangled Banner.
There are also numerous secular societies of the most varied kind,
recreational, linguistic, gymnastic, musical, patriotic, educational, fra-
ternal (or secret), and economic. Charitable institutions supported
by the Danish Americans are scattered throughout the country.
The press. Of the many newspapers and periodicals published in
the Danish language in the United States since 1872, only a few are
still in existence. Det danske Pioneer (Omaha, Nebraska) appeared
in 1872 as a liberal periodical with socialistic tendencies and was for
many years the leading Danish newspaper in America. It is now
more conservative and has always supported the Democratic Party.
The Dannevirke (Cedar Falls, Iowa) has been the unoflicial organ of
the Danish Lutheran Church since 1880. The Bien (San Francisco,
California) appeared two years later on the west coast. The
Nordlyset (New York) began its career mainly to represent the
Danish colony in Chicago. . Det danske Ugeblad (Tyler, Minne-
sota) has been the unofficial organ of the United Danish Lutheran
Church since 1916.
Educational institutions. It is noteworthy that the Danes can
boast of the highest rate of naturalization of all American citizens —
78.1 per cent, a rate which surpasses even that for Sweden (77.1 per
cent) . Their adjustment to the American environment is also facil-
itated by their high rate of literacy. This fact is intimately connected
with the folk high school movement in Denmark. It was only natural
that American Danes should try to preserve their cultural heritage
DANISH AMERICANS
79
in the United States by means of the same institution. A number of
folk high schools were established in the Danish Horn, Shelby County,
Iowa, in 1878, but these had to be closed during World War 1 . Four
other schools also sulfered from indifference and lack of financial help,
in spite of the attempts of the Grundtvigians to support them. A few
such schools survive today, notably Ashlajid Hojskole (Grant, Michi-
gan), Danebod Hojskole (Tyler, Minnesota), Dansk Hojskole (Port-
land, Maine) and Nysted Hojskole (Danebrog, Nebraska). Among
educational institutions must be included Dana College and Seminary
(Blair, Nebraska) founded in 1886, and Grand View College (Des
Moines, Iowa) established in 1895.
The various churches and associations promote their own educa-
tional activities. These church organizations, with the exception of
the Grundtvigian, have been of a strictly religious character. The
Grundtvigian young people’s societies also promote interest in gym-
nastics, folk dancing, singing, dramatics, and libraries.
American Danes and World War 11 . In 1942, Fortune magazine
reported on American Danes as follows; “Less impregnated with
‘realism’ than the Swedes, but also less united in anti-Axis fervor than
the Norwegians, are the half-million United States Danes. In general
they back Henrik de Kauffmann, Danish Minister to the United
States, who defies German orders from Copenhagen. The leading
fraternal organizations of United States Danes do not fall for Nazi
propaganda, which tries to prove that Denmark made a good bargain
when it accepted German protection.” ^
Contributions to American Life
Their cultural heritage is itself the most important contribution
made by the Danes to American life. The Danish folk high school,
whether in its original Danish or its modified American form, is of
considerable significance for American education; it has suggested
methods and principles of adult education that are widely practiced
today, for example, the experiment carried on by S. A. Mathiason,
of Danish descent, in the Pocono People’s College, the Pocono Study
Tours, and the American People’s College in New York City.
The conditions of the dairy industry in America are to a large
degree the result of work done by the Danish people. Danish experi-
ments and discoveries, and particularly the invention of the cream
separator, revolutionized the milk, butter, and cheese industry. The
2 “Steam from the Melting Pot,” Fortune, September, 1942, p. 76.
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
8o
Danes introduced their methods in America, and in the early eighties
a Danish immigrant living near Cedar Rapids imported a cream
separator, then a novelty in Iowa. Danish methods were soon learned
and imitated by others, and the fame of American dairies soon spread
to Europe. There are still many districts in Minnesota, the Dakotas,
and Wisconsin where all the dairies are owned or rnanaged by
Danes. Intimately bound up with their success in farming and the
dairy industry is the Danes’ inclination for cooperation. Cooper-
ative associations were well received in Danish communities and in
the groups in contact with them. There are still some associations
of this nature flourishing among both urban and rural groups.
The Danes have made distinguished contributions to American
life, not only as a group, but also as individuals. Jacob A. Riis ( 1 849-
1914) was born in Ribe, Denmark, and was apprenticed for four
years to a carpenter in Copenhagen. Coming to New York in 1870
he tried his hand in turn at farming, coal mining, brickmaking, and
peddling before, on the strength of his previous journalistic experi-
ence, he secured employment on a weekly newspaper published at
Hunter’s Point, Long Island. After several years he joined the
Neav York Tribune (1877-1878) and later the Evening Sun (1888-
1899) as a police reporter. Afterward he supported himself by
articles, books, and lectures. His activities at police headquarters led
Riis to his life work, the cleansing of New York’s slums. In vivid
newspaper and magazine articles, in countless lectures, in widely read
books, he focused attention on the life of the poor, especially of the
children, and organized their relief. His exposure of the con-
taminated condition of the city’s water supply led to the purchase
of the Croton watershed; he abolished police station lodging houses;
he worked for child labor legislation and its enforcement; he secured
playgrounds and a truant school; he forced tenements to be destroyed;
he revealed to a horrified country long-hidden dens of vice, crime
and filth; he drove bakeries, with their fatal fires, from tenement base-
ments. Riis’s chief supporter was Theodore Roosevelt.
Niels Poulson (1843-1911), iron-master, architect, and philan-
thropist, built the Hecla Architectural Iron Works at Brooklyn in
1897. The construction and ornamental details of the Grand Central
and Pennsylvania railway stations in New York City are products
of the Hecla Works. Poulson’s house in Brooklyn was built almost
entirely of copper. He left the bulk of his estate to endow the
American Scandinavian Foundation for the purpose of fostering closer
understanding between the United States and the Scandinavian coun-
DANISH AMERICANS
8i
tries. Poulson was also an ardent believer in popular and adult edu-
cation and established a technical evening school in his factory where
employees could obtain free instruction. He must also receive credit
for several mechanical inventions, such as fireproof stairs and library
boolcstacks.
Lack of economic opportunities in Denmark has resulted in an
unusually large number of Danes joining American scholarly and
scientific institutions. Niels Christian Nielsen is curator of pre-
historic archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History of
New York. August Busch has been the entomologist expert of the
United States Department of Agriculture since 1896; another Dane,
Adam Giede Bving, is senior entomologist at the United States Bureau
of Entomology. Jens C. Clausen was connected with the Rockefeller
Foundation and the Division of Genetics of the University of Cali-
fornia, and is a member of the Division of Plant Biology of Stanford
University.
One of the foremost naval architects of America is William Hov-
gaard, who was professor of naval design and construction at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1931— 1933. Neds Eobesen
Hansen, professor of horticulture at South Dakota Agricultural Col-
lege and Experiment Station since 1895, found in Turkestan and
Siberia species of alfalfa that could grow on the prairies of the North-
west. Waldemar Westergaard holds the chair of history at the
University of California. C. Larsen, dean of agriculture in the
South Dakota State College, is the author of several books on dairy
science, as is also Martin Mortensen, dean of the department of dairy
industry, Iowa State College. Julis Moldenhawer introduced pasteur-
ization into America. There are numerous well-known Danish
artists, among them, Rehling Quistgaard.
In the sphere of business, Mathias P. Mleer of Hagerstown, Mary-
land, is a pioneer in organ building and owns the largest organ riianu-
facturing factory in America. Peter Larsen built railways for the
Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Grand Trunk railways. The
late John Carstensen was a vice-president of the New York Central
Railway. George Rasmussen organized one of the largest chain
stores in the Middle West — the National Tea Company. William
Knudsen, executive vice-president of the General Motors Company,
became one of the best-known leaders appointed by President Roose-
velt to put America’s industry on a war basis during World War II.
William Hovgaard has the distinction of being one of America’s most
noted naval architects.
82
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
Jean Hersholt, the Danish motion picture actor, is also famed for
his collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s works; he has selected
and translated thirty of his countryman’s most memorable tales
(1943)-
Assimilation of Danes in America
The notion of the integration of the Danish culture within the
American environment is not new to some Danish- American leaders,
as the Reverend F. L. Grundtvig, though Americanization is thought
of less as a process of absorption than as an interplay of social forces.
His ideas are now being acknowledged by the most enlightened
tliinkers of America in the field of cultured pluralism. Grundmg’s
Danish People’s Society was based on his nationalistic cultural and
spiritual Danish-American ideals. However much he tried to incul-
cate a love of Danish culture through the medium of his songs, he
nevertheless always favored loyalty to America and its institutions.
Grundtvig’s conception of America as the land of the trysting place
of nations (Folksestaevnets Land) fepresents the great American
ideal: that Americanization is but a fruitful exchange of the social
heritages of all the various peoples settled in the United States — an
exchange that will ultimately create something finer and nobler than
any of its individual component parts.
F. DUTCH AMERICANS
A. J. Barnouw
Dutch emigration to North America took place in two widely
separate periods: first in the seventeenth century before the seizure
of New Netherland by the British, and again in the forties and fifties
and subsequent decades of the nineteenth century.
The earliest immigrants were fur traders, but after the Dutch West
India Company was founded in 1621, a systematic attempt was made
to bring agriculturists over to the colony. There never was any
great enthusiasm among the Dutch at home for emigration to New
Netherland. The home country was prosperous, there was little
unemployment, and the conditions imposed upon the settlers by the
company were no inducement to exchange security at home for an
adventurous life in the new world. Those who did go were impelled
by various reasons: wanderlust, the hope of improving their lot, the
wish to abscond and turn over a new leaf, or a longing for freedonj
beyond the control of government agencies. The urban population
DUTCH AMERICANS
83
of the Dutch Republic was far from homogeneous, Amsterdam and
the other cities of Holland having offered shelter to thousands of
refugees from other countries, and the settlements in New Nether-
land must have reflected that composite character of the nation in
the motherland. Father Jogues, who visited New Amsterdam in the
late forties of the seventeenth century, found eighteen different
languages spoken on Manhattan Island.
Immigration
The Dutch in New Netherland settled on Manhattan, Long Island,
in the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk, at the mouth of the
Delaware, and along the lower course of the Connecticut River.
John Miller, in Neao York Considered and Improved (1695), esti-
mated that “the number of the inhabitants in this Province are about
3,000 families, whereof almost one halfe are naturally Dutch.” The
nucleus of this Dutch population of New York was the settlement
west of the lower Hudson in the region now known as Ulster County.
The numerical predominance of the Dutch in this part of the country
appears from the encroachment of their language upon non-Dutch
settlements. Until 1800, Dutch was the prevalent speech of northern
New Jersey, from which it should not be inferred, however, that the
entire population was of Dutch stock. Here again, as in Ulster
County, French and German settlers, by adopting the speech of the
majority, had become identified with the Dutch. It is, therefore,
a hopeless task to estimate the extent of Dutch immigration up to the
War of Independence. Intermarriage between descendants of differ-
ent European stocks blurs the picture still further. The committee
report to the American Council of Learned Societies arrives at a total
of 106,750 Dutch in the territory covered by the United States in
1790.
The second wave of immigration from the Netherlands occurred
in the middle of the nineteenth cenmry. A large majority of these
newcomers were recruited from the rural classes. Economic dis-
tress drove the poorest among them to seek betterment in America.
Religious motives were mixed with their resolve. These people
belonged to the most orthodox among the Calvinists, to whom the
Dutch Reformed Church seemed to have swerved from the true
teachings of John . Calvin. They seceded from its fold and met
in conventicles, which, being forbidden by the authorities, were
forcibly broken up and dispersed. They hoped to find in the
new world release from hunger and persecution, and under the
84
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
leadership of ministers of the Word, they set sail for America.
The first group arrived in 1 846 with the Reverend A. C. van Raalte
at their head. With funds collected in the mother country, he pur-
chased land between the Kalamazoo and Grand rivers and the little
Black River, which flows into Black Lake, now part of Lake Michigan,
but in those days separated from it by a ridge of dunes. Close to
these natural trade routes he laid the foundations of Holland, the
future port of the Dutch settlement in Michigan. Another group
of like-minded seceders from the Dutch Reformed Church made a
new home for themselves between the Des Moines and Skunk rivers
in Iowa and called their settlement Pella.
Also, about the same time, occurred a Roman Catholic immigration
from the Netherlands under the leadership of Father T. J. van den
Broek, a Dominican missionary, who had preached the gospel among
the Indians around Green Bay and Fox River, Wisconsin, from 1834
until 1847. In the latter year he went to Holland and returned in
1848, at the head of a company of Roman Catholic immigrants, to
the Fox River Valley, which is even today the center of Dutch
Catholic colonization in the United States.
Van Raalte, van den Broek, and Scholte, the leader of the settlers
in Pella, Iowa, were the pioneers who showed the way to other groups
that were to follow. The main stream turned toward Michigan. Its
map is dotted with villages bearing names borrowed from place names
in Holland. The other states that were attractive to the Dutch were
New York and New Jersey in the East, owing no doubt to their
early ties with Holland in the days of the Dutch Republic; Iowa,
Wisconsin, and Illinois in the Middle West; and California in the Far
West.^
The choice of these regions was determined by their similarity of
soil and climate to that of the country from wHch the immigrants
came. All the Dutch settlements are situated between the isothermal
lines that also enclose the Netherlands, and their soil belongs, as does
that of Holland, to the moraine region of the diluvial glacier. A few
isolated attempts at colonization by Dutch settlers in Colorado, Texas,
and Florida ended in failure because of their unfamiliarity with the
soil they found there and with weather conditions foreign to the tem-
perate climate of Holland. Even in the middle states best suited for
settlement, it took them some time to adapt themselves to the greater
^ For a detailed analysis of distribution by states, see table compiled by Dr. Neil
van Aken, Executive Secretary of the Netherland Chamber of Commerce, New
York City.
DUTCH AMERICANS 85
disparity between summer and winter temperatures and to the long
periods of heat and drought, which never occur in Holland.
Until the seventies of the nineteenth century the exodus from
Holland to the United States continued unabated. As economic
conditions in Europe improved, the stream began to lose in volume,
until it dwindled to a mere trickle in the early twentieth century.
The total number of immigrants of Netherland birth now living in
the United States, according to the census figures of 1940, is 1 1 1,064,
which is no more than 1 per cent of all foreign-bom white residents.
Of this number over 90,000 were living in the seven states men-
tioned above as being attractive to Hollanders, the rest being scattered
over the remaining forty-one states. The largest number, 32,128,
were settled in Michigan, and of these 13,000 were in Grand Rapids,
3,000 in Kalamazoo, 2,500 in Detroit, and 1,500 in Muskegon. These
figures do not present an accurate picture of the Dutchness of these
cities, for there are still many American-born descendants of the
settlers of the forties and fifties of the past century who cling to
Dutch customs and are able to speak the Dutch language.
Assimilation and the Influence of Orthodoxy
The binding force that holds Hollanders together is not their sense
of racial unity, but the religious faith that they have in common.
They do not feel drawn to one another because they speak the same
language, unless they also profess the same creed. In Belly Fulla
Straw, an autobiographical novel by David Cornel De Jong, a young
American author who was bom in Holland and came to this country
in his early teens, the story is told of a Dutch carpenter who, shortly
after World War I, settled with his wife and four children in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. He was not a church member and his children
had not been baptized. He soon found that as a Hollander he could
lay no claim to the help of his Dutch-American neighbors; only as
a member of the Dutch Reformed Church was he assured of a
welcome among them.
The most ignorant, of course, are the most exacting neighbors.
The less a man knows, the more cocksure he is of the little he does
know. Such people will not allow even the slightest departure from
the doctrines that they have learned to revere as the only trae ones;
hence, repeated secessions from the fold by the rigidly orthodox
occur when liberalizing tendencies threaten to undermine the faith.
Dr. A. C. van Raalte, the heroic leader of the Holland colony in
Michiga|^, incorporated his flock with the Dutch Reformed Church
86
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
of America. But there was opposition against this move from the
outset, and it was not long before the stricter members, who called
themselves the True Dutch Reformed, seceded and organized the
Christian Reformed Church. In 1880 there was a new schism among
these true brethren, the truer ones forming the “Netherland Reformed
Church,” and this separatist body split again in two by a secession
of the truest. Such religious conservatives are also extremely tena-
cious of Dutch language and customs. The stubbornest resistance
to Americanization is offered by the most orthodox believers.
This power of resistance inherent in religious orthodoxy proved
the pioneers’ most valuable asset. For, thanks to that same power,
they were able to withstand the trials and hardships of the life that
awaited the first settlers in the forests of Michigan and the prairies of
Iowa. Calvinism, thanks to the fervor with which it inspires the
faithful, is a great builder of colonies. Even its schismatic tendencies
proved a blessing in disguise. The rival sects sought to surpass one
another in the care that they took of education. The Christian
Reformed, having realized that their Dutch Reformed brethren owed
their higher social standing to the culture that was spread among them
by the alumni of Hope College at Holland, Michigan, redoubled their
efforts to raise their own standard of education at Calvin College,
Grand Rapids. This rivalry in education is benefiting both groups
and may, in the course of time, bring about their union. As the
Americanization process goes on, the dividing lines will gradually
fade and fusion will automatically follow.
This resistance to the Americanization process, especially among the
Christian Reformed, is not due to a lingering love of the old country.
The Dutch Calvinists of Michigan are taught by their schoolteachers
and ministers to think of Holland as the country that a century ago
persecuted their ancestors and compelled them to seek freedom of
religious worship in America; and since that happened under the rule
of King William I, they have no special affection for the House of
Orange. After the invasion of Holland in May, 1940, a group of
Hollanders and American friends of Holland organized the Queen
Wilhelmina Fund for the relief of Dutch refugees. Its appeals for
funds were coolly received by the Michigan Dutch. They were will-
ing to help, but they objected to the fund being named for Her
Majesty.
As the use of the Dutch language becomes more and more restricted
to the church, it loses its capacity of serving the needs of everyday
life. One need but glance at some of the Dutch papers that are still
DUTCH AMERICANS
87
being published in the United States to realize that the Dutch language
is in a state of decay. Only three, Knickerbocker W eekly, Sta?idard
Bulletin, and the Missionary Monthly Reformed Review, have a cir-
culation above 3,500, and each of these prints articles in both English
and Dutch. The Dutch language does not, and cannot, produce any
literature, for it has lost the creative vitahty that must quicken artistic
expression. These isolated spots where Dutch speech lingers on are
like pools of stagnant water left behind by a receding flood such as
never again will inundate those parts. They are severed forever
from the mainspring whence the tides came rushing on until the
immigration laws of 1921 and 1924 threw up dikes in protection
against them.
No Dutch American has ever portrayed life as it is lived in these
settlements in a novel written in the Dutch language. The few
writers who chose that theme expressed themselves in English, and
one of these, Edna Ferber, the author of So Big, a story of Dutch
people in Roseland, Chicago, is not a Dutch American. Cobie de
Lespinasse, in The Bells of Helnnis, has told a story of a Dutch settle-
ment in the Middle States that is disintegrated by religious schism.
David Cornel de Jong’s autobiography. With a Dutch Accent,
describes the Americanization of a Dutch boy brought from a small
village on the Frisian coast to the city of Grand Rapids.
Arnold Mulder is an American of Dutch descent who has drama-
tized, in a series of four novels, the conflict between the younger
generation, which is wholeheartedly American, and their elders, who
will not surrender their Dutchness. Mulder himself is of that younger
generation. He has surrendered, along with his Dutchness, the old
orthodox faith. He remains, nevertheless, a resident of Kalamazoo,
Michigan, which may be taken as welcome evidence that the exclusive
bigotry which kept heterodox Hollanders apart in pioneer days has
yielded to a more tolerant spirit. And this leads one to the para-
doxical conclusion that the Dutch as a people become united when
they cease to assert themselves as Dutchmen.
Since the church is the binding force that holds Dutch immigrants
together, it follows that their social life, as distinct from the American
life around them, will center around the church. The Christian
Reformed Church forbids membership in secret societies such as the
Masonic Order, whose initial oaths they condemn as unscriptural.
The Dutch Reformed Church, which has not expressed itself on this
point, leaves the decision to local churches, many of which forbid
their members to join such societies. Mission work and charity are
88
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
prominent activities of both churches. The Dutch Reformed, which
is financially the stronger of the two, has carried its mission work into
Japan, China, India, and Arabia. The Christian Reformed Church,
though also active in China, has restricted itself more to mission work
among the Navajo Indians and to welfare work among the poor and
the outcasts of society at home. There are also several societies
among the Dutch that are organized for the double purpose of pro-
viding entertainment and insuring their members against the excessive
costs of hospitalization and burial. There are five such cooperative
insurance societies in Chicago, and one in Greater New York, called
Eendracht Maakt Macht (Strength in Unity). There are Knicker-
bocker societies in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and in Chicago, purely
social organizations of Hollanders and descendants of Hollanders who
are still attached to the land of their origin. The Frisians, who are
the only Netherlanders speaking a language other than Dutch, main-
tain their own Frisian selskips (societies) in Paterson, New Jersey,
Rochester, New York, Grand Rapids and Holland, Michigan,
Chicago and Hebron, Illinois, and at Clearwater, California. Amer-
icans of Frisian descent organized in 1943 a Frisian Information Bureau
which intends to spread knowledge about Friesland and Frisian history
and culture. It began the publication of a Bulletin in January, 1944,
eight issues of which had appeared by October, 1944.
The Algemeen Nederlmdsch V erbond (General Netherland
League), a world- wide organization with headquarters in Holland,
whose purpose is to maintain the cultural bond among Netherlanders
scattered all over the world, including the Dutch-speaking people of
Belgium and South Africa, has a New York chapter called Afdeeling
Nieuw Nederland. It has never appealed to the Dutch settlers in
the Middle West, probably because of its nonsectarian character. Its
meetings are held on Dutch national feast days, such as Sinter-
klaas (Santa Claus), which the Hollanders celebrate on December
the fifth; the anniversary of the Rehef of Leyden on October
third; the Queen’s aijd Princess Juliana’s birthdays; and similar occa-
sions.
Little has been said so far about those Hollanders who, without
any church affiliation, come to this country and settle in an Enghsh-
speaking community. They soon lose their Dutchness and become
Americans. The educated Hollander adapts himself easily to foreign
ways, and his knowledge of the English language, which is taught in
all Dutch high schools, facilitates the process of adaptation. Their
number was swelled by the streani of well-to-do refugees that poured
DUTCH AMERICANS
89
into this country after the Nazi invasion. Prominent businessmen
are among them. The internationally known firm, Philips Electrical
Industries of Eindhoven, Holland, moved its headquarters to New
York, and several other concerns followed its example. The East
Indies also contributed their share. The majority of those who
escaped capture by the Japanese settled in Cahfomia,
Contributions to American Life
A large number of native Dutchmen are to be found on the
faculties of our colleges and universities. The statistics of Nether-
land exports do not list the scholars whom Holland sends abroad.
Bulbs and butter and cheese supply food for speculation to the statis-
ticians at The Hague. They are not concerned with scientists and
savants. Still, Queen Wilhelmina’s country produces a larger number
of these than its universities are able to absorb, and since the United
States, praised be Congress, has never erected a tariff barrier against
their importation, American institutions of higher learning are gather-
ing the fruit of learning that Holland raised. The majority of them
belong to the Netherlands University League of North America,
which has a membership of over eighty and meets twice or three times
a year for the discussion of scientific and cultural topics. In one of
these gatherings the plan was conceived for the publication of a sym-
posium on the contribution of Holland to the sciences, which was
completed in 1943.
Four Hollanders who have achieved national fame in the United
States are the late Edward Bok, the late writer and lecturer Hendrik
Willem van Loon, the airplane builder and aviator Anthony Fokker,
and Hans Kindler, conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra,
Washington, D. C.
In 1921, New Yorkers were invited to view an uncommon exhibi-
tion. It was called “America’s Making” and claimed to give a com-
prehensive survey of the various contributions made to American life
by the thirty-odd nations that have sent immigrants to the United
States. The show, the papers said, was a great success. It was,
indeed, a gorgeous pageant of native costumes from aU parts of
Europe; it was a busy workshop where potters and glassblowers and
lacemakers and glovers and woodcarvers were plying their old-world
trades; it was a busy market of picturesquely furnished booths, where
ladies in uncommon European garb and common American accent
sold the kind of knickknack that tourists bring home from transatlantic
trips. It was, in short, a demonstration not of what these various
90
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
races had given to America, but of the things they had lost in giving
themselves to this country.
The immigrants’ contributions to American life are not so tangible
as to be capable of visible demonstration. These aliens from many
lands brought along with them their faiths, their ethics, their industry,
their skill, their prejudices, but of these no exhibits can be made.
America’s making is too complicated a process to admit of so simple
a demonstration. It cannot be visualized — ^it can only be told; and
even the historian who is able to collect and arrange the facts and
interpret them with a philosophic understanding will find himself
balked in his task by the insufiiciency and the elusiveness of his
material.
G. BELGIAN AMERICANS
Francis J. Brown
Although Belgium is the most densely populated country in Europe,
having 688 persons to the square mile, the country has never been
a great source of emigration. The state was exceptionally prosperous
— at least before World War II — and its emigration has been com-
paratively slight. Whatever emigration there has been from Belgium
in recent times, the bulk of it has gone to the United States, which
admitted a total of 160,487 Belgians from 1820 to 1943, the great
majority coming after 1,880 and the largest number in the first decade
of the twentieth century. Most of them are Flemish rather than
Walloons, and they come largely from peasant districts. It is esti-
mated that 75 per cent of all Belgians in the United States are Flem-
ings.
In 1940, there were approximately 60,000 foreign-born Belgians and
1 3 5,000 Belgians “of foreign white stock” in the United States. Most
of them live in Michigan, Illinois, and New York, although they can
be found in every state of the Union. This is indicated by the
Belgian names of some of our communities; Antwerp (New York and
Ohio); Brussels (Illinois and Wisconsin); Ghent (Minnesota and
Kentucky) ; Charleroi (Pennsylvania) ; and others.
Almost half of the Belgian Americans have settled in rural areas.
The skill of the Belgians as truck farmers and gardeners is well known.
They have imported a great many of their magnificent draft horses,
and their splendid breeds of dogs are appreciated as much as their
carrier pigeons. Following the old Belgian custom, pigeon races are
conducted regularly in the Belgian settlements. Belgians are familiar
BELGIAN AMERICANS
91
with tapestry weaving; glass, rug, and leather- making; the making
of house furnishings (mainly those of wood); the art of the potter
and of the goldsmith; wood and stone carving; diamond cutting (a
specialty of the artisans from Antwerp, living especially in New
York); cutlery and cigar malting. The Flemings are especially
interested in the textile industry, while the Walloons engage in
metallurgy. The Belgian workers are employed in the factories
and silk mills of Detroit, Michigan, Chicago, and Mohne, Illinois,
South Bend, Indiana, Rochester, New York, Paterson, New Jersey,
and New York City; and they are employed as glass-blowers in
Wheehng, West Virginia. A number of them are brick masons,
stone workers, and architects. Belgians are also famed as cooks,
bakers, butchers, and sailors. Although little handmade, exquisite
Belgian lace is imported today, it is being produced here by Flemish-
American housewives.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Religion. Most of the Belgian immigrants are Catholics. There
are two Belgian Catholic churches in Detroit, and one in each of the
cities named above, as well as in San Antonio, Texas, and Ghent,
Minnesota. The Church of St. Albert on West Forty-seventh Street
in New York City is the social and religious focal point for some
30,000 Belgians from Long Island, New York, and Hoboken and
Paterson, New Jersey. Another colony is gathered in Rochester
around the Our Lady of Victory Church, founded about 1880, which
has a membership of some 1,200 members; in addition to these, there
are close to 3,000 Belgians in the neighboring places of Canandaigua,
Phelps, Newark, Chfton Springs, Ontario, and Marion.
Language and customs. The problems besetting most other immi-
grant groups of America are of httle importance to the Belgians, for
the Belgians readily become American citizens. In 1940 nearly 70
per cent of their foreign bom had been naturahzed. The differences
between the Flemings and Walloons are not of serious consequence
in the United States. Although there are some dividing lines between
these two branches of Belgians whenever the two are represented in
the same community, this is largely because of the economic and
social levels of the immigrants; the Flemish group is composed mostly
of farmers and unskUled laborers; the Walloon branch is mainly repre-
sented by skilled laborers and better educated individuals. Even the
numbers of each branch indicate that their differences cannot be too
serious: for example, the Flemings compose about 90 per cent of all
92
OLD” IMMIGRATION
Belgians in New York City and its environs. Both of the Belgian-
American newspapers, De Gazette van Moline (Moline, Illinois) and
De Gazette van Detroit (Detroit, Michigan) are printed in Flemish.
As the greater part of both groups is Catholic, religious differences
do not complicate other points of disagreement, as they do among
the Dutch.
Even the problem of the “second generation” is of no serious con-
sequence to the Belgians in America. The Belgian immigrant group
is not haunted by such opprobrious names as “Bohunk,” “Chink,”
or “Sheenie.” The attitude of good feeling and sympathy on the
part of the average American, developed at the beginning of World
War I, tends to create pride in the American-bom Belgians. Al-
though they may use English in speaking to their parents, there is no
marked resentment on their part against the parental background.
Thus, they very easily merge into their American environment.
Contributions to American Life
Early contributions. Few American histories give adequate, if
any, recognition of the importance of the Belgians in early American
history. Quite literally, it was a Belgian who first “put America on
the map.” Mercator, bom in the little town of Rupplemonde, near
Antwerp, made the early maps of the new world, and it was on his
map of 1541 that the name “America” appeared for the first time
on the northern continent of the western hemisphere. Father Louis
Hennepin, a Belgian Catholic priest, a Walloon, explored a large
portion of America and was the first white man to see Niagara Falls.
His book, A Neiu Discovery of a Large Country in America^ contains
the earliest description of this vast region and was one of the first
printed “advertisements” of the wonders of the new land. A street
in Minneapolis, a village in Illinois, and a county in Minnesota bear
his name. His publications were the three most famous books of
the period — books that were to give everlasting glory to their author
and to remind Americans of the part that Belgians had played in the
exploration of the United States. In 1683 his first book appeared.
Description of Louisiana-, in 1697, The Ne^ Discovery of a Very
Large Country came out in Utrecht; and a third book, A Trip
Through a Country Larger than Europe, was published in the same
city.
These works were beyond any doubt the best sellers of the time.
They were translated into Flemish, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin,
and English, a real accomplishment for that period. Proof of the
BELGIAN AMERICANS
93
great influence of Pere Hennepin’s work is the fact that there were
fifty editions of his three books within a few years.
Many other Belgian explorers and missionaries followed in Father
Hennepin’s footsteps. Among them may be recalled the uncle of
Cardinal Mercier, Father Croquet, who was known as “the Saint of
Oregon,” and Archbishop Soghers, who was called “the Apostle of
Alaska.” One of the greatest of all was Father De Smet. Born in
East Flanders in i8oi, he began his great missionary work among the
American Indians in 1823. His “little parish” extended from the
Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
Although the Dutch usually receive the credit for being the first
settlers of New York and vicinity, actually the first settlers were
Walloons, people from the southern parts of Belgium. Thousands of
Belgians became Protestants in the sixteenth century. The Catholic
rulers of Spain rigorously persecuted these Protestants, who fled in
large numbers to the northern parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, and
elsewhere. Jesse de Forest organized the first band of Belgian colo-
nists to come to Manhattan Island; he was a Belgian Walloon, born at
Avesnes, which was at that time a part of the Belgian province of
Hainaut and which remained a part of that province until ceded to
France by the Treaty of Pyrenees in 1659. But it was a Fleming,
William Usselinx, who organized the West India Company which
made it possible for these colonists to come. Their first group came
to Manhattan Island in 1623 on the ship New Netherland. The fact
that they had sailed from Holland has caused many historians to
believe that they were natives of the southern parts of Belgium, then
called the Comte de Hainaut and the Comte de Flandre, and that they
came largely from the cities of Avesnes, Valenciennes, and Lille, On
the other hand, these Calvinists of Belgium are also confused with
the French Huguenots, as these cities were annexed to France, after
the victorious wars of Louis XIV, in 1658 and 1678.
Hence the first settlers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Delaware, and Pennsylvania, the Middle Atlantic states, were Belgian
Walloons. In fact, the maps of the seventeenth century indicate the
whole territory from Cape Cod to the Delaware River as Nova
Belgica. A Walloon monument was erected in Battery Park, New
York City, on May 20, 1924, near the spot where the Walloons had
landed three hundred years before. It is a plain shaft of stone, with
the coat of arms of the Province of Hainaut. In the upper part runs
a garland of sculptured oak leaves, and below is an inscription that
reads:
94
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
PRESENTED TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK
BY THE
CONSEIL PROVINCIAL DU HAINAUT
IN MEMORY OF WALLOON SETTLERS
WHO CAME OVER TO AMERICA IN THE
“NIEU NEDERLAND” UNDER THE
INSPIRATION OF JESSE DE FOREST OF
AVESNES THEN COUNTY OF HAINAUT
ONE OF THE XVII PROVINCES
According to Bayer, it was a man of Belgian blood, Peter Minuit,
who bought Manhattan Island from the Indians in 1626; it was a
good bargain, as he paid for the whole tract on which the city of
New York is situated the price of only 60 gulden — or about I24 in
American money.
Even if we have no documentary evidence of Nicolas Martian’s
Belgian origin, his very name stamps him as a Walloon of old stock.
“Martian,” a corruption of the French word “Marteau,” is a distinc-
tive Walloon dialect word meaning “hammer” and is still used today
among the peasants of Belgium. Martian came to Virginia about.
1623 and became a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia,
and later on, from 1633 to 1657, a justice of York. His great-grand-
daughter married Lawrence Washington, the grandfather of George
Washington. Martian was also the ancestor of other men prominent
in the colonial history of America, among them being Thomas Nelson,
governor of Virginia, who commanded the Virginia troops at the
Battle of Yorktown under Washington.
We have the record of some Belgian officers who accompanied the
Marquis de la Fayette, among them Charles de Pauw, of Ghent, whose
grandson later founded De Pauw University in Indiana.
Recent contributions. In more recent times, the late Dr. Leo
Hendrik Baekeland, Belgian-born chemist, gave the world thousands
of plastic items from billiard balls to insulation for battleships through
his invention of bakelite. He was also noted as the inventor of
Velox, a highly sensitized photographic printing paper, the ori ginal
formula for which he sold to the Eastman Kodak Company for
$1,000,000. He was founder of both the General Bakelite Company
and the Bakelite Corporation. A native of Ghent, Dr. Baekeland
came to this country toward the turn of the century to continue the
research work he started at the University of Ghent and aided in
developing the Townsend electrolytic cell for producing caustic soda
BELGIAN AMERICANS
95
and chlorine from salt. During World War I he was a member of
the United States Naval Consulting Board and the advisory board of
the Department of Commerce’s chemical division and chairman of the
committee on patents of the National Research Council. He was
first Chandler lecturer at Columbia University and held an honorary
professorship in chemical engineering at the university after 1917
until his death in 1 944. He also was president of the Inventors’ Guild
and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and served as this
country’s delegate to the International Congress of Chemistry in 1 909.
A member of the University of Notre Dame, Father Nieland, is the
famous discoverer of artificial rubber, developed by the du Fonts;
this invention broke the British monopoly in the rubber field. Andre
Parmentier, a Walloon bom in Belgium, is one of the founders of
landscape gardening in America. Several Belgians have taught at
Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Georgetown universities. The
Catholic University of Louvain inspired the idea of the Cathohc Uni-
versity of America, and the graduates of the American College of
Louvain have furnished the bulk of pioneer educational work in
Michigan, Washington, Montana, and Oklahoma. The great violin-
ist, Eugene Ysaye, is well known to America’s music lovers, and New
Yorkers remember Ernest Van Dyck, Madame Delaunois, and
Madame Lardinois, of Metropolitan Opera fame. General Goethals,
whose name is always associated with the Panama Canal, was of
Belgian descent, as was also the late Dr. Maurice Francis Egan, former
United States minister to Denmark, one of the foremost writers of
America and professor in the Universities of Georgetown and Notre
Dame, and the Catholic University of America. The eulogy of
Father Joseph Damien, of Louvain, was written by Robert Louis
Stevenson for his courageous work among the lepers of Hawaii.
Henry J. Mail, honorary vice-consul of Belgium in New York City,
represents the fourth generation of the family holding this office and
interested in the manufacture of woolens. Mgr. J. F. Stillemans
organized the Belgian Rehef in America during World War I and
for many years was director of the Belgian Bureau in New York
City.
In addition to the contributions of Belgian immigrants, America’s
public museums and private collections treasure priceless Flemish
tapestries, leather carvings, sculpture, engravings, porcelain cabinets,
chests, artistic furniture, laces, and bookbindings. The office building
of the Delaware and Hudson Company at Albany, New York, is a
modernized reproduction of the famous “Cloth Hall” of Ypres.
96
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
Memorial Day is of special significance among Belgian Americans,
as the New York troops, the Twenty-seventh Division, were among
the first soldiers to fight as a unit on Belgian soil. The American
public is reminded every year that the wild poppy of Flanders is the
emblem of the American Legion. Our patriotic memories are stirred
by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae’s great poem of World War I,
“In Flanders Fields”:
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row.
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are- the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
Twenty years later, the heel of the invader again trampled over
Flanders fields and Belgian Americans were soon fighting once more
with other American forces “where poppies blow.”
H. FRENCH AMERICANS
Francis J. Brown
As the British influenced the development of New England and the
east-central colonies, so the French explorers and colonists left their
indelible imprint upon the territory almost completely surrounding it.
Two separate paths were hewn through the wilderness, one up the
St. Lawrence and Great Lakes Basins and down the Mississippi to
Louisiana, the other from Florida across the southern lowlands to
join at the mouth of the “Father of Waters.” Forts were built at
strategic points along these paths, colonies were established, and from
these focal points new areas were explored and new settlements were
built.
As early as 1541, Jean Frangois de la Roque, named by the king
lieutenant-general of New France, and Jacques Cartier built a small
FRENCH AMERICANS
97
fort near the site of what is now Quebec. They called it Charles-
bourg Royal, but after three struggling years the fort was abandoned.
It was nearly a century later, in 1632, before colonization in the
upper St. Lawrence country was resumed. Gradually explorers and
traders pushed west, north, and south. Samuel de Champlain ex-
plored the lake in upper New York State that bears his name and was
the first white man to see Lake Huron. Through his efforts, French
influence had been spread southward to the Hudson River and west-
ward as far as the interlocking streams which in Wisconsin formed the
principal canoe route to the Mississippi.
Even more permanent was the influence of the Jesuit missionaries,
who, in 1 640, began their courageous struggle to convert the Indians
to Christianity. Despite every conceivable hardship, in a little more
than half a century leaders such as Fathers Marquette, Johet, and
LaSalle, and hundreds more who are nameless in history, had estab-
lished missions and trading posts aU along the Great Lakes and down
the Mississippi, some of them, like Chicago, St. Louis, and New
Orleans to become great cities. It was through the valiant efforts of
these missionaries that France laid claim to the vast Louisiana Terri-
tory.
The first French settlement in Florida was established in 1562 on
the St. John River and named Fort Caroline. Like the Puritans, these
first colonists were Protestants and came for religious freedom. Un-
der the leadership of Ribauld and Laudonniere the little colony did
well and three years later was increased by the arrival of seven hundred
men and two hundred women. The Spaniards, however, believed
that the Protestants were heretics and, only a few years later, destroyed
the colony, thus virtually ending French influence in this region.
The only state-supervised French colonization on what is now
United States territory was that of Louisiana. Mobile was founded
in 1702 and New Orleans in 1719. Louisiana colony was established
largely as a commercial venture, backed by the Scot, John Law, then
a banker in France. When voluntary emigration failed, he induced
vagrants and even a few criminals to join the two hundred families
he had persuaded to venture the long, dangerous voyage. This fact
led to a scandal which resulted in the bankruptcy of Law and the
withdrawal of all official backing of the colony.
Despite this fact, the colony remained and grew m population and
in influence. Most of the settlers raised tobacco, while others became
trappers and traded with the Indians. Following the course of rivers,
the Louisiana colony stretched northward like a great westward tipped
98 “OLD” IMMIGRATION
V and at the time of its cession to Spain had a population of eleven
thousand.
Another group,- sometimes referred to as Italian Protestants, should
also be mentioned — ^the Waldensians, who came to America in 1656.
They were members of a Christian sect that arose in southern France
in 1170, and were considered heretical by the Catholic Church.
Some of them migrated to northern Italy and settled in the fertile well-
wooded Waldensian valleys that lie southwest of Turin, and thus they
became known as the Waldensians. They arrived first in New York
and Delaware in 1656. Another group of Waldensians settled at
Stony Brook, Staten Island; and, according to Morris’s Memorial
History of Staten Island, it was there that they built their first
churches, the first of any denomination on the island, in 1670. In
1773, another group of the Waldensians came to America from
Rotterdam.
Differing in religious belief at a time when to be different was to
be a heretic, and with their homelands almost continually at war
with one another, it was inevitable that the colonists of England,
France, and Spain should come into frequent conflict with one an-
other. The British capture of Quebec in 1759, the long series of
wars and the final sale of the Louisiana Territory to the United States
in 1803, are familiar to every school child. To say, however, that
French influence ended with the Louisiana Purchase would be to
ignore the deep foundations that had been laid. National feeling
never subsided, and today nearly half a million people hving in
the former settlements of the Louisiana colony continue to speak
French.
Later Immigration
The intervening period of French immigration differs little from
that of other north European countries except in one important char-
acteristic: immigration remained more constant from 1830 to 1930
than did that of any other country. During the decade 1831
to 1840, it was 45,575, and from 1921 to 1930 it was 49,610. The
highest peak, 1841 to 1850, was but 77,262, and the lowest, 1891 to
1900, was 30,770. Total French immigration from 1820 to 1943
was 605,430.
The number of French-bom in the United States in 1940 was
102,930. This is a small group compared with the number from other
large nations. Even if to this number is added those of the second
French generation, the total, according to the 1940 census, is 199,110.
FRENCH AMERICANS
99
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
The direct result of the early history of the French in America is
clearly shown in the fact that the percentage of Americans of French
descent living in Louisiana is greater than in any other area of the
United States. The rather large number of French and French
Canadians found in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and Michigan
bear evidence of the trek of early colonists and missionaries. Al-
though, like other “old” immigrants, French Americans are now
scattered through America, there are some 35,000 in New York City,
and, on the west coast, there is a fairly large group in San Francisco.
The French have several organizations which maintain and propa-
gate French ideals in America. One of the most important of these
is the Federation de V Alliance Frangaise aux Etats-Unis et Canada
(French Alliance in United States and Canada), which has head-
quarters in New York Qty and branch offices in all of the larger
cities of the United States. The Alliance organizes series of lectures
by well-known French leaders. Many branches also organize social
gatherings to provide an opportunity for French-speaking people to
get together and to keep up their language.
What are the occupations of this relatively small number of French
immigrants? Unlike the other foreign colonies, the element of non-
speciahzed manual labor is almost nonexistent among the French. On
the other hand, the predominating groups are those engaged in teach-
ing. This group, consisting of university and college professors, high
school and private school teachers, tutors, and so on, contributes the
most toward the dilfusion of the French language, French ideas, and
French culture. French summer schools such as those of Middlebury,
Columbia University, Mills College, and Penn State, although the
duration of their courses is quite short, do remarkable work with
French students through afforing them a typical French atmosphere
in which to live. Middlebury College is recognized by the Sorbonne.
The next largest group consists of cooks, who range from paid chefs
engaged in the largest and most exclusive hotels of America down to
kitchen boys. In New York alone, more than 3,000 are engaged in
this profession. A large group is engaged as domestic help, including
servants and chauffeurs. However, since wages in this type of em-
ployment are low compared to other employment, these positions no
longer attract so many immigrants. In fact, a great many returned to
France prior to the war. Also, French hairdressers for ladies are very
much in demand in the United States and their prestige is high in com-
100
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
parison with that of hairdressers of other nationalities. As a matter
of fact, many hairdressers who have no French connections take
French names in order to attract a larger clientele.
Several other groups should be mentioned, such as those who are
engaged in the perfume, silk, cosmetic, jewelry, and wine businesses,
either as owners, managers, or salesmen.
The assimilation of the French parallels that of other foreign-
language groups from northern Europe. The complete absence of
any attitude of prejudice makes for the free interplay of social inter-
action, and many individuals merge wholly into American life and
institutions. On the other hand, there are many areas in which the
native French ^ have formed definite culture groups. The French
colony of New Y ork may be taken as fairly typical. It is so organized
that it has formed a regular French community in the heart of the
city. It has its own churches, hospital, pharmacies, school (French
lycee), theater, newspapers, and magazines. Thus it has been able
to maintain not only its own language but also its institutions and
traditions.
With their homeland overrun, in World War II, those of French
origin sought in various ways to perpetuate the sense of national
unity. They contributed generously to the maintenance of the
activities of their govemment-in-exile and maintained active contacts
through available channels. Their own cultural and fraternal organ-
izations were even more active than before. Yet, at the same time
their sons and daughters enlisted in the armed forces in large numbers
and contributed not alone to the restoration of their mother country
but even more to the preservation of American ideals to which their
forebears have made so significant a contribution.
Contributions to American Life
Among the settlers peopling the Atlantic coast, the Huguenots have
had a large influence on our history and are stiU a dominant force.
Their simple life, frugal habits, domestic virtues, their cultivation of
music and the arts, have all had a distinct share in the molding of the
American national spirit and character.
New York was founded by Pierre Minuit, who settled on Man-
hattan in 1619 and bought the island from the Indians in 1624. The
village was called at first “Neu-Belgica,” as many of the followers of
Minuit were Walloons; then it was changed to “Village of Neu-
Avesnes” (Avesnes is a town of northern France, the birthplace of
1 A distinction must be made between the native French and the Canadian and
Swiss French, discussed in their respective chapters.
GERMAN AMERICANS
lOI
Jesse de Forest, a Huguenot leader of the Group). When tercen-
tenary stamps of the foundation of New York were issued in 1924,
they bore no mention of the Dutch settlers.^
A Huguenot was the first president of the Colonial Congress. John
Jay became the first chief justice of our country and president of the
Continental Congress. Alexander Hamilton was a Huguenot on his
mother’s side. Descendants of the Huguenots have been prominent
in all walks of life; among the most outstanding we might mention
Paul Revere, Presidents Tyler, Garfield, and the Roosevelts, Admiral
Dewey, and the La Follettes of Wisconsin.
American history abounds in the great names of the Frenchmen
who fought in our War of Independence. Lafayette and Rocham-
beau are the greatest of them. Stephen Girard was another hero
who aided us in our struggle for freedom. John James Audubon is
“the man who introduced us to the birds of America.” Augustus
Saint-Gaudens was a great American sculptor.
In the field of science, the name of the late Dr. Alexis Carrel may
well be mentioned for his splendid research work at the Rockefeller
Foundation. He was French by birth but he became an American
citizen.
These are but a few of the many of French origin who have con-
tributed much to American life. From earliest history to the present,
the gifts of such men to America have been lasting and invaluable.
I. GERMAN AMERICANS
A. B. Faust
The most immediate and impressive fact about the Germans in
America, viewing them historically, is that they have contributed
over 25 per cent of the flesh and blood composing the present white
population of the United States. The English element (including
Scots, North Irish, and Welsh) alone exceeds them with about 33
per cent, and third come the Irish (Free State or Catholic) with about
15 per cent. None of the other numerous national stocks exceeds
5 per cent by the same calculation.^
L. Henin, as expressed in his “American Historical Oration,” delivered at
Newport, Rhode Island, on July 14, 1928, for the commemoration of the landing of
the French expeditionary troops. The fact that Minuit and de Forest are “claimed”
by the Dutch, Belgians, and French is a further illustration of the ethnocentrism of
minority groups, as is also the claim of the French Huguenots by both French and
Belgians.
^This estimate has been carefully derived by statistical methods explained in
detail in the writer’s book, The German Element in the United States, VoL II,
Chapter 1 .
102
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
Characteristic of the German immigrations throughout their history
has been the very slight return migration to the native country as
compared with recent immigrations. Their assimilation was rapid
almost to a fault. The children of German parentage exhibited traits
recognized as typically American. These were produced by many
historical and economic conditions: the pressure of frontier habits,
the quest for land and large opportunities, the common level of edu-
cational facilities, and the democratic environment and government.
We cannot thinV of the German element without the historical back-
ground, beginning with the colonial period and following their con-
tributions to, and participation in, the upbuilding of the American
nation.
Immigration
Early settlements. The Germans had their Mayflower. It was the
ship Concord, which on October 6, 1683, brought the first body of
Ger man immigrants to Philadelphia. Their leader, Franz Daniel
Pastorius, had come in advance and bought from William Penn a
neighboring tract of land, on which he established the first German
permanent settlement in the American colonies, only two years after
the founding of Philadelphia in 1681. This settlement was called
Germantown and became the distributing center for the large and
continuous German immigrations throughout the eighteenth century.
The German settlers spread over the central and southern counties of
Pennsylvania and formed a new base in Lancaster County. Thence
they followed the mountain range to the southward, colonizing
western Maryland. Crossmg the Potomac they ascended the Shenan-
doah Valley and made of the Valley of Virginia a rich agricultural
country. There they stood in readiness to trek southwestward into
Tennessee and Kentucky, or directly southward to the banks of the
Yadkin and Catawba in North Carohna.
The Moravians began their settlement of the Wachovia district,
now Forsyth and Stokes counties (North Carolina), about 1750,
only nine years after their original settlement of Bethlehem, Pennsyl-
vania, by Zinzendorf in 1741. South Carolina also received a large
contingent of German settlers m the eighteenth century, who came
through the port of Charleston. Some few remained at the seaport,
but most of them, beginning about 1735, settled permanently in what
was known as the Saxe-Gotha district, the present Orangeburg and
Lexington counties, then the extreme western frontier. There was
a tradition that Queen Anne had set aside this southern area for the
GERMAN AMERICANS 103
settlement of the Palatines, the name given the German refugees who
had come to London in great numbers in 1709 and thereafter, hoping
to be transported to the American colonies. Just so, Queen Anne
traditionally granted them a tract of land in the north, at the request
of American Indians visiting London.
This “promised land” was Schoharie in the colony of New York.
Governor Hunter brought over a large number of the Palatines in
1710, to carry out his plan of producing tar from the pines at East
and West Camp on the Hudson. After the failure of this ejcperiment,
on Livingston Manor, the German colonists left for Schoharie and
built seven villages there. When an attempt was made to dispossess
them, some migrated to new land on the Mohawk, which was soon
settled almost exclusively by German pioneers on both its banks.
The most northerly settlement of the Germans in the eighteenth
century was that of Waldoboro, Maine, in 1751, and the most
southerly that of the Salzburgers, in 1734, at Ebenezer, Georgia, then
the southernmost limit of settlement. Many German tradesmen re-
mained in the coast cities of Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and
Charleston; and Pennsylvania remained the most thickly settled by the
German element, Germans numbering over one third of the total
population. In the entire area of the thirteen colonies in 1775, the
German contribution was about one tenth of the white population.
These German settlers of the eighteenth century were for the most
part agricultural people, accustomed to hard work and efficient in the
methods then known of procuring the greatest yield per acre.
The German Quakers of Germantown immortalized themselves by
their formal protest against Negro slavery in 1788, the first time such
action was taken in the history of the American people. Also a deed
of imperishable fame was the printing by Christopher Saur in 1743 of
the complete Lutheran Bible in the German language. It was the
first Bible printed in a European language in the American colonies
(John Eliot’s printing in 1663 was a translation into the Algonquian
language of sections of the Bible) . Another eminent German printer
was Henry Miller, subsequendy printer of Congress, who announced
the ratification of the Declaration of Independence in his Staatsbote,
on Friday, July 5, 1776, a day ahead of the other Philadelphia papers,
and issued a complete German translation of the declaration in his
paper on July 9th.
It was not the first time that a German printer and publisher wrote
himself into history, for Peter Zenger, founder of the independent
New York Weekly Journal, was tried for hbel in 1735 (defended by
104
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
the Scotch-Irish Andrew Hamilton), and made the first great fight
for the liberty of the press in America. Still earlier in the New York
colony, in the seventeenth century, the prominent merchant, Jacob
Leisler, bom in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, during an interregnum was
elected the first people’s governor of New York, called the first
congress of American colonies in May, 1 690, and suffered martyrdom
for his independence and public spirit when overcome in 1691 by
his enemies.
Later irnmigration. During the nineteenth century German immi-
gration outdistanced all others and reached its highest peaks as follows:
1846-1854, the period before and after the German revolutionary
years of 1848-1849. During those nine years almost 900,000 Ger-
mans arrived, an extremely large number for those days. Over half
of these came in 1852-1854; the banner year was 1854 with 215,009.
Missouri, Wisconsin, and Texas were then the pioneer sections toward
which many directed their course. There was another high wave
between 1866 and 1873, with a general average of 100,000 annually.
Then again there was an upward bound after 1880, with the record
of 250,630 in 1882. After another rise in 1891-1892, when 244,000
arrived within two years, there was a steady decline, owing to more
prosperous conditions at home and the disappearance of free or cheap
land in the United States. An average annual German immigration
of 20,000 diminished steadily until it reached the vanishing point
during the first World War. Immigration began again in the 1920’s
and continued almost to maximum quota. From the beginning of
World War II to June 30, 1943, 80,022 Germans, largely refugees,
were admitted. This number is 3 1 per cent of all immigration during
this five-year period and is more than four times that of any other
country except Canada.
Contributions to American Life
Industrial development. In the industrial history of the nineteenth
century the Germans became pre-eminent in all those branches that
required technical training. They had had the advantage of technical
schools at home, while similar institutions had not yet been founded
in America. Above all we see the Germans leading as engineers.
John A. Roebling built the first great suspension bridge over the
Niagara River, and followed it by his Brooklyn Bridge. Just as
prominent in another type of bridge-building, Charles C. Schneider,
with his cantilever bridge over the Niagara llWver, demonstrated that
this type was superior for carrying heavy railway traffic. Gustav
GERMAN AMERICANS
105
Lindenthal was consulting engineer and architect of the Hell Gate
steel arch bridge over the East River; and these examples might be
multiplied. The only peer of Edison in electrical engineering was
Charles P. Steinmetz, the wizard of Schenectady; and in mining
engineering the name of Adolf Sutro, constructor of the great tunnel
under Virginia City in Nevada, will never be forgotten. Albert Fink,
expert railway engineer, was the originator of through tralEc in
freight and passenger service, while Count Zeppelin made his first
experiments in military aviation in this country during the Civil War.
In the nineteenth century, however, the Germans led not only in
the engineering branches, but in many others requiring technical
training and the ingenuity of the expert. Thus, in the chemical
industries and manufacture of drugs, German names were outstand-
ing: Rosengarten, Pfizer, Dohme, Vogler, Meyer, Schieffelin, Lehn,
and Fink; in the manufacture of pianos and musical instruments: Stein-
way, Knabe, Weber, Sohmer, Wurlitzer, Gemxinder, and others; op-
tical instruments: Bausch and Lomb; textiles: A. Dodge, Deimel, Thun,
Janssen, Oberlaender, Horstmann, Fries, and so on; tanning: Foer-
derer, Schoellkopf, Carl Schmidt, Schieren, Groetzinger, Pfister and
Vogel, and others; wagon and car manufacnuing: Smdebaker, Brill,
Wagner; agricultural machinery: Aultman, Miller, Seiberling,
Buchtel, Landis, Crouse; iron and steel manufactures: names too
numerous to mention, from Baron Stiegel and Hasenclever in the
eighteenth century to Frick and Schwab of the nineteenth; metals:
zinc — ^Mathieson and Hegler, Heckscher; aluminum — ^Koenig, Vits,
Werra, Wentorf, and others; manufacture of enamel ware: Kohler,
Kieckhefer, and so on; in the manufacture of food products: Hecker
(flour), Ziegler (Royal baking powder), Schumacher (rolled oats);
sugar: Spreckels, Havemeyer; salt: Ruffner, Goessmann; starch:
Piehl; chocolate: Hershey, Heide; canning and preserving industry:
Heinz, Lutz and Schramm, Schimmel, Bosman and Lohman, and
others; brewing: Anheuser-Busch, Pabst, Schlitz, Uihlein, Blatz, Seipp,
Ruppert, Ehret, and so on; furniture: Herrmann, Wernicke; lithog-
raphy: Prang, Bien, Hoen, Gugler, Ringler, wire manufacture;
Roebling, Schoenberger.
The Germans of Jewish extraction have been very prominent as
bankers (Schifl, Warburg, Speyer, Goldman, Rosenwald, and others) .
They have made certain lines of business their otvn, as clothing manu-
facture and department stores. John Wanamaker, however, the orig-
inal founder of the department store, was of Pennsylvania-German
descent.
io 6 “OLD” IMMIGRATION
The Germans of the latter half of the nineteenth century produced
many captains of industry: Frederick Weyerhaeuser, forest and
lumber magnate; Henry Steinway, piano manufacturer; A. Schoell-
kopf, tanner and leather manufacturer — his sons, leaders in hydraulic
power and aniline colors; George C. Boldt, manager and proprietor
of the Waldorf-Astoria and other hotels; Rudolph Blankenburg, im-
porter, in municipal politics — “the War Horse of Reform.” A little
later Ferdinand Thun, Henry Janssen, and Gustav Oberlaender made
textile machinery and manufactures (Reading, Pennsylvania), and
were outstanding also for their benefactions: the Wyomissing Founda-
tion (humanitarian), the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation (cultural),
and the Oberlaender Trust (cultural).
All of these men, bom in Germany, were worthy successors, in
industry and trade, of John Jacob Astor, born at Waldorf, near
Heidelberg, who in the beginning of the nineteenth century laid the
foundations of a great fortune by his monopoly of the fur trade.
In the 'wars of the United States. Bancroft, the historian of the
American Revolution, and Gould, the statistician of the Civil War,
testified that the Germans volunteering in those wars exceeded in
proportion that of the natives and all other foreign elements, a won-
derful tribute to their loyalty and courage.
At the very opening of the Revolutionary War, in 1776, the Con-
tinental Congress established by vote a German regiment which was
recruited in Pennsylvania and Maryland and which distinguished itself
in the New Jersey campaigns and in Sullivan’s expedition against the
Indians. Under General Greene were the two reliable German
brigade commanders, Peter Muhlenberg and George Weedon
(Wieden), whose regiments were composed mainly of German
settlers in the Valley of Virginia and elsewhere. Other famous
leaders in the Revolution were General John Kalb (Baron de Kalb),
General Herkimer, and Inspector-General Frederick William Steuben
(Baron Steuben), drillmaster of the American forces and identified
with all American military interests, the planning of West Point, the
fortification of New York City, and the writing and rewriting of the
Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United
States, commonly called Steuben^ s Manual, which remained the guide
for American military discipline for more than a generation. On his
statue, which stands in Lafayette Park across the street from the
White House, is the inscription, “Erected by the Congress of the
United States in grateful recognition of his services to the American
people in their struggle for liberty.”
GERMAN AMERICANS
loy
Gould, in his general summary of enUsmients of the foreign element
in the Civil War, gives the number of volunteers bom in Germany
as 176,897; those in Ireland, 144,22 1, and in England, 45,508. When
we remember that the number of persons of both sexes born in
Germany and residing in the United States in i860 was only 1,276,075
(about 72,000 lived in the South, but as many came to the United
States during the war years to live in the North), and compare this
figure with an enlistment of nearly 200,000 in the northern army,
we realize that the percentage of Germans volunteering was one of
the largest in history. The actual enlistment of the Germans was
58,415 above that called for in proportion to population.^
No account has been taken above of men of German descent;
among them were General Strieker, defender of Baltimore in the
War of 1812; General Quitman, one of the principal fighting generals
of the Mexican War; General Custer, the dashing cavalry leader of
the Civil War and famous Indian fighter; and Admiral Schley, com-
mander of the fleet that destroyed Cervera’s squadron in the Spanish
War.
A similar record of active participation of German Americans
could be given for World Wars I and II, but space does not permit.
It is sufficient to state that despite language and even blood ties, they
have, with surprisingly few individual exceptions, been Americans
rather than Germans.
In politics. The common impression is that the influence of Ger-
mans in this department has not been commensurate with their num-
bers. Though this must be frankly admitted, their influence for good
in American politics has been very much greater than is generally
understood. The Germans never entered politics for a livelihood.
In the history of the country, however, when there existed a real and
important issue, the German voter did not shirk. He formed his
own opinion about the situation and acted in accordance with it. As
he did not want any public office or rewards for fidelity to any party,
he voted independently. This was true even in the days of Benjamin
Franklin, who, recognizing that he had lost control of the German
vote, fell into a rage and condemned it as un-American. If the word
hyphenates had been invented at that time, he would have found
much satisfaction in using it. Independent voting, never popular
with political leaders, has now become quite American and is the safe-
^B. A. Gould, Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics
of American Soldiers, p. 28, Table IV. New York: United States Sanitary Com-
mission, 1869.
io8
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
guard of the people, though the despair of the professional politician.
Outstanding was the position of the German element on the ques-
tion of Negro slavery, which shook the nation to the depths. The
earliest protest against Negro slavery in American history was that
of the Germantown settlers of the year 1688. The document, still
preserved, was drawn up in the handwriting of the German colony s
leader, Franz Daniel Pastorius, signed by him and a group of repre-
sentative German colonists, and addressed to the monthly meeting of
the Quakers, who passed it on to their annual meeting for considera-
tion. The German Salzburgers of Georgia, the Germans of the
Valley of Virginia, and the Moravians of North Carolina ' resisted
the keeping of Negro slaves as long as was possible. It was by no
means an accident that the chairman of the congressional committee
who drafted and put through the bill for the prevention of the im-
portation of Negro slaves to the United States, after 1808, was a man
of German parentage, Major George Michael Bedinger, the noted
Kentucky hero of pioneer and Revolutionary fame. When the time
came for the great struggle in 1856-1866, the large German element
of the northern states stood solid against slavery, joined the new
Republican Party, and contributed practically as a unit to the election
of Lincoln.'*
Why is Carl Schurz held in highest esteem by Americans of German
lineage? He was a man of great positive achievements, yet he is
admired just as much for what he tried but failed to accomplish.
Carl Schurz was one of the greatest of the antislavery orators and was
a strong force contributing to the Republican victory of i860.
Lincoln appointed him minister to Spain in recognition of his serv-
ices, but Schurz resigned at the outbreak of the war to join the Union
Army. He distinguished himself as a commander in the Battle of
Gettysburg and at Lookout Mountain. Immediately after the con-
clusion of the war, he was sent to observe the condition of the South,
and his report was a monumental document of contemporary history.
Elected to the United States Senate by the state of Missouri, Schurz
became noted as one of the Senate’s most brilliant and effective
speakers, an uncompromising idealist, and a caustic critic. Chosen
sSee Adelaide L. Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, in four
volumes. Raleigh, North Carolina: Edwards and Broughton Printing Company,
1922-1930.
*The growth of German sentiment in opposition to slavery and its influence in
the election of Lincoln can be followed in detail in Volume IV of Hermann E. von
Holst, The Constitutional and FoUtical History of the United States, Chicago:
Callaghan and Company, 1877.
GERAIAN AMERICANS 109
by President Hayes as a member of his Cabinet, he, for the first time
in American history, carried out the principles of civil service reform,
for which he staked his political existence. While Secretary of the
Interior, Schurz also set in motion other reforms: the preservation of
forests and the better treatment of the Indians. Schurz was an inde-
pendent in pohtics, sounded the note of political reform always, and
remained true to his ideals in defeat. His retirement gave him oppor-
tunity to write his fascinating memoirs, the life of Henry Clay, edi-
torials for the Nev) York Evening Post, and many essays and addresses
of historical importance. The memoirs, of Gustav Koemer, political
leader of the Germans in lUinois, are also invaluable as source mate-
rial for the background of the CivU War.
Germans have been active in reform movements in American poli-
tics, not alone in the civil service, but in party and municipal reform
movements, peace congresses, and questions of sound money and per-
sonal liberty. Francis Lieber was an authority on international law.
Frederick W. Holls was secretary of the American delegation to the
first Peace Congress at The Hague (1899). Congressman Richard
Bartholdt was president of the American delegation at the second
Congress in 1907. Some German reform mayors were: Charles
Adolph Schieren (Brooklyn), Adolph H. J. Sutro (San Francisco),
General John A. Wagener (Charleston), and Rudolph Blankenburg
(Philadelphia).
Educational influence. The highest and the lowest rung of the
ladder in the American educational system, the university and the
kindergarten, are German importations. These the native American
brought over himself, just as he also reproduced the model of the
EngHsh college. The secondary school felt a German influence when
Horace Mann reported favorably on the Prussian school system
(1843) and estabhshed the normal, or training, school for teachers.
The kindergarten is the work of a German lover of children, Friedrich
Frobel, who had both German (the first, the wife of Carl Schurz)
and American disciples who introduced in the United States various
types of kindergartens: private, those of the public schools in many
parts of the country, and the charity kindergartens in the slums of big
cities. In the department of higher education, the German influence
was pre-eminent throughout the nineteenth century, beginning
with George Ticknor and Edward Everett, who were students at
Gottingen from 1815-1817. They were the pioneers in the great
migration of American students to German universities, which, up
to 1 860, included two hundred and twenty-five of the brightest young
no
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
minds of the American states, among them George Bancroft, G. H.
Calvert, Wilham Emerson (older brother of the poet), H. W. Long-
fellow, J. L. Motley, B. L. Gildersleeve, Francis J. Child, E. T. Harris,
G. M. Lane, W. D. Whitney, T. D. Woolsey, G. L. Prentiss, H. G.
Smith, F. H. Hedge, W. C. King, B. A. Gould, George William
Curtis, and Timothy Dwight. One hundred and thirty-seven of
these pioneers of higher education became professors in American
colleges, which were aglow with the new inspiration of scholarship.
The migration did not stop with i860 but after the war continued
throughout the nineteenth century, when Gottingen shared popularity
with Heidelberg, Bonn, Berlin, Leipzig, and Munich.
Postgraduate work — ^that is, the university proper — was estab-
lished on American soil by the foundation of Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, in 1876, under the leadership of D. C. Gilman, who after a
tour of Europe pronounced the German university system supreme.
Every American university worthy of the name followed the lead of
Johns Hopkins University. The graduate department has^ become
the crown of the educational edifice. The state university idea,
begun at Ann Arbor, Michigan, also sailed under the star of German
influence. The book of the Frenchman, Victor Cousin, a report on
the Prussian state school and university system, was accepted as a
guide by the founders of the state school system of Michigan,
which in turn became a standard for the state university system of
other western states. Higher education in technical branches re-
ceived a new start through the passage of the MoriU Bill (1862) and
the founding of Cornell University in 1865, which, through its first
president, Andrew D. White, gave German ideas an open door.
Music. If the Germans had done nothing more than the culti-
vation of music in America, their coming for this alone would be
deserving of grateful record in American annals. During the eight-
eenth century, the Puritans in New England and the Quakers of
Pennsylvania checked the development of music. Contemporane-
ously the German sectarians of Pennsylvania, though equally austere
in their mode of life, fondly practiced the art of choral singing. The
mixed choir of the brothers and sisters of Ephrata, near Lancaster,
and the music schools of the Moravians at Bethlehem, invoked ad-
miration and fostered the sacred flame. Philadelphia with its large
German population early began the cultivation of music and gave the
first ambitious program of classical music on May 4, 1786. Boston
made a good move with the founding of the Handel and Haydn
Society in 1815. Real progress was made by this association when
GERMAN AMERICANS
HI
in 1854 a professional conductor was called, the great German
orchestral drill master, Carl Zerrahn. Gottlieb Graupner had earlier
won the distinction of being the father of orchestral music in Boston.
The Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, started in 1820, was con-
structed on a broader foundation than the earlier society in Boston.
It admitted both sacred and secular programs, combined instrumental
and vocal music at its concerts, founded a school, built a music hail,
and gave assistance to needy musicians. Beethoven’s First Symphony
was played by this organization probably for the first time in Amer-
ica. New York began to show its mettle about the middle of the
nineteenth century with the founding of the Philharmonic Society,
and its rival, the famous Germania Orchestra (composed mainly of
German refugees of the revolutionary period of 1848-1849), boldly
began to make tours, giving during six years of its existence 829 con-
certs in the leading cities of the East, West, and South (1848-1854).
In 1881 was founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra with George
Henschel (born in Breslau) as the first conductor, followed after
three years by another German, Wilhelm Gericke. It was Gericke
who, during successive periods of appointment, made the organiza-
tion an instrument perfect of its kind, and he was followed by noted
German conductors from Emil Paur to Karl Muck, while in New
York the names of Anton Seidl and Leopold Damrosch (and his sons
Frank and Walter) were famous. No individual had a greater in-
fluence on the development of taste for orchestral music than had
Theodore Thomas (bom in the Prussian province of Hannover,
1835), who, after a successful career in New York and Cincinnati,
established his own orchestra in Chicago.
In opera and in other vocal music the efforts of the German leaders
and the Mannerchore throughout the country must not be over-
looked, nor the influence of music schools established by Germans.
Historically the humble German music master labored with unflinch-
ing fidelity, without the hope of name or fame, at the task of intro-
ducing music into the American home. The radio has supplanted
the music master, but it is creditable to American taste, and a develop-
ment attributable largely to German influence, that the most popular
radio hours are those devoted to orchestral music performances, ac-
cording to statistics gathered from all over the country.
Fine arts. Twice in the history of American painting was there a
German influence, the first time through the Diisseldorf school in the
1840’s, and again about fifty years later, through the Munich artists.
To the first school belonged Emanuel Leutze, best knovm for his
112
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
large historical picture “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” which
hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Albert Bierstadt intro-
duced the Diisseldorfian manner in landscape painting on large can-
vases — for example, “Storm in the Rockies,” “Mount Corcoran”
(Sierra Nevada), “The Yosemite Valley,” and so on. The later
Munich influence was illustrated by Carl Marr (bom in Milwaukee) ,
professor at the Munich Academy, and Gari Melchers (bom in
Detroit), professor at the Hochschule f. bildende Kunst at Weimar,
both widely recognized, and C. Schreyvogel (born in New York),
a painter of Wild West scenes.
In sculpture there were strong influences on the development of
the American art by Charles H. Niehaus, Frederic W. Ruckstuhl,
Albert Jaegers (Steuben and Pastorius monuments), Hans Schuler,
and many others.
A form of art that was practiced brilliantly by Germans was that of
the caricature, resulting in the establishment of comic papers such as
Puck, which was founded by Keppler and Schwarzmann (1876-
1877). “Zim (Zimmermann) drew for Judge-, “Hy Mayer” for Life;
“Bunny” (C. E. Schultze) invented the “Foxy Grandpa” series. But
the first great caricaturist in American history was Thomas Nast
(bom in 1840, in Landau, Palatinate), of whom President Lincoln
said: “Thomas Nast has been our best recraiting sergeant,” showing
how deeply Nast could influence public opinion and stir emotion.
He was one of the most active forces in the destruction of the cormpt
Tweed Ring in New York City. His cartoons of the Republican ele-
phant, the Democratic donkey, the Tammany tiger, Santa Claus,
and so on, are immortal productions.
Religion. The Germans founded three major churches in Amer-
ica early in the eighteenth century: the Lutheran, united by the
patriarchal Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg; the German Reformed,
first organized by Michael Schlatter; and the Unitas Fratmm (United
Brethren or Moravian), established under Count Zinzendorf and his
son-in-law David Nitschmann at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1741.
The Moravians were the most successful Indian missionaries (Post,
Heckewelder, Zeisberger) in American history, and were noted for
their schools. Practically all the sectarians of Germany came to
America, mostly to the land of promise, Pennsylvania. The Men-
nonites and Amish, Schwenkfelders, Tunkers (German Baptists, also
called “plain people” and, improperly, Dunkards), and others enjoyed
freedom of worship in the land of Penn, and these religious sects
have survived to the present day. German Catholics came in large
SWISS AMERICANS
113
numbers during the nineteenth century and formed a strong organ-
ization. Johann Martin Henni was the first bishop of Milwaukee in
1844 and the great pioneer in the Northwest (created archbishop in
1875). Henry Boehm (1773-1875, bom in Lancaster, Pennsyl-
vania), at first associated with Asbury on his missionary tours, was
the apostle of German Methodism, preaching mainly in German and
gaining a large following and church membership in many parts of
the country, especially among German settlers. He was for seventy-
five years an itinerant preacher, and at the time of his death was
the oldest Methodist preacher in the United States.
J. SWISS AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
The earliest Swiss emigration to the United States can be traced
indirectly to the Swiss mercenary soldiers serving under Ferdinand
and Isabella of Spain. After their return home, they disseminated
news of the epoch-making discovery by Christopher Columbus with
such enthusiasm that many courageous Svidss adventurers resolved to
try their luck in the promised land across the Atlantic. The first
historical record of a Swiss in America is that of Diebold von Erlach,
a mercenary soldier (or officer, judging from his noble title), who
died in the service of Spain in Florida in 1562. Although to the
end of the sixteenth century there is record of relatively few Swiss
in the new world, with the beginning of the seventeenth century their
immigration is more numerous. Among the earliest settlers of James-
town, Virginia, several Swiss names are found.
First Swiss settlement. The first distinctly Swiss settlement is
reported to have been established in 1670 near Charleston, South
Carolina, under the guidance of the Genevese, Carteret. As a rule,
wherever German immigration took place in earlier centuries, Swiss
were to be found in the group. Thus, in 1683, the name of George
Wertmuller, a Swiss, is recorded in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
simultaneously with the founding of New Bern, North Carolina, by
Christopher de Graffenried.
In the second half of the seventeenth century, many people left
the canton of Bern and journeyed northward into foreign parts.
Many who went to Alsace, the Palatinate, and other parts of Germany
may later have journeyed to America. The revocation of the Edict
of Nantes by King Louis XIV of France, in 1685, induced many
Swiss, particularly of Geneva and Neuchatel, to join the Huguenots
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
1 14
of France, their religious brethren across the border, in emigration to
America. These groups settled mostly in the Carolinas.
From their first appearance in Switzerland in the early decades of
the sixteenth century, the Mennonites had been the victims of syste-
matic persecution on the part of their Reformed brethren. From
time to time single families and individuals fled to the Palatinate, and
eventually large numbers of them decided to join their Swiss brethren
in the movement that resulted in settling on the Pequea in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania. In 1706—1707 a number of persecuted Swiss
Mennonites went to England. Queen Anne sent some of them to
Ireland, but most of them went to the American plantations. After
1710 considerable numbers of Swiss Mennonites reached Pennsyl-
vania and the Carolinas. In 173^’ Purysburg, South Carolina, was
founded, against the opposition of the Swiss authorities, who now
feared an exodus of their people. At first the Swiss officials had
tried to get rid of a pauper element, the homeless Landsassen — squat-
ters, not citizens — and the sectarian class. Baptists, Anabaptists, or
Mennonites ( Wiedertaujer, Taufer) . These were a source of danger
to both church and state because of their refusal to bear arms or hold
ofiice, their simplicity of worship, and their communistic tendencies.
But soon the ofiicials began to see the danger in continued emigration.
In 1719, Fr anz Anton Karren of Solothum, against the will of the
Swiss Diet, organized a Stviss regiment for French expeditionary
services in the new world. Karren’s soldiers fought against the British
in Louisiana in the French and Indian War.
Social and economic conditions favored an increase in emigration
in the thirties and forties of the eighteenth century. Young Swiss
noblemen still continued selling themselves and their soldiers to
foreign war lords. There were periodic failures of crops, because
of hailstorms and floods. The high tide of emigration came in 1734
and 1744, and the emigration fever gave visible signs of becoming
an epidemic. The “rabies Carolinae” reached the critical stage in
1734-1750; it affected most of the populous Protestant cantons of
Bern, Zurich, and Basel. Decrees against emigration were issued
with ever-increasing severity, but the periodic tides of emigration
could not be controlled. Overpopulation, coupled with bad eco-
nomic conditions, compelled it. Furthermore, letters, numerous
books, and pamphlets, descriptive of the American colonies, did the
rest. During that century many Swiss Mennonites settled in Penn-
sylvania. A large proportion of the Pennsylvania German Mennon-
ites are descendants of Germans and Swiss from the Rhineland.:
SWISS AMERICANS
“5
From their original settlements in Pennsylvania they have since
spread to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, farther west,
and Canada. It is of interest that these early settlers often found
that their nonresistant principles served as a better protection against
the Indians than did rifles and stockades. There are few records of
injury of any kind inflicted upon them by the Indian tribes. It is
also interesting that some of the Russian Mennonites who emigrated
to America to escape military service in Russia are of Swiss origin.
The American immigration statistics long confused Swiss with
Germans and French. Professor Faust estimates that some 12,000
Swiss landed in America between 1734—1744, and some 25,000 in the
whole century. The nineteenth century movements fluctuated. Be-
ginning with over 6,000 in 1 800, immigration reached a crest of 12,751
in 1883, and from 1880-1886, over 61,000 Swiss arrived in the United
States. The immigration consisted of the farming element, attracted
by cheap land in America, and of skilled workers and technical experts
in industry. In 1940, there were 88,293 foreign-born Swiss in the
United States and 77,880 second generation. Swiss descendants can
be found in all parts of America.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Any large aggregation of Swiss people is not caused by a tendency
to colonize for nationalistic reasons but by employment in some one
industry of which a particular locale is the center. Swiss are pre-
eminent in the following trades and industries; hotel and restaurant,
dairy and cheese, silk, jewelry and watches, grape wine, poultry, and
embroideries and laces. The traditional excellence of Swiss watches
explains the large number of Swiss engaged in the jewelry, watch,
and clock trades. But it is in the silk industry that they have attained
the higher importance, and their holdings are rated in the millions.
In addition, the Swiss are especially proud of their technical experts,
who are usually graduates of the famous Polytechnicum at Zurich
where the celebrated scientist, Albert Einstein, a naturalized Swiss
citizen, was a student and later a professor.
In language, the Swiss in the United States are divided principally
into three linguistic groups: the German -Swiss, the French Swiss,
and the Italian Swiss. The German Swiss constitute four fifths of
the total. Of the remaining fifth, the French ’Swiss are somewhat
a majority, and the rest are composed of Italian Swiss and Romans
from the Grisons.
Many of the Swiss are Mennonites. This group, who are usually
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
1 16
farmers, are settled in all parts of Pennsylvania, but Lancaster County
is their chief center. In general, many have retained the manners and
customs of their forefathers. Many still dress in quaint garb, the
women wearing caps even at their housework. They worship in
plain meetinghouses, choose their ministers by lot, and will not take
oath or bear arms. Some Swiss, of course, join other American
churches, including Lutheran, Calvinist, and Catholic, but predomi-
nantly Zwinglian.
Periodicals. Although united as a nation under a republic and a
democratic government that have won the admiration of many
political observers, the Swiss to some extent remain socially apart in
America, a fact conditioned by their dependence on different lan-
guages. This fact is reflected in their newspapers. The Ameri-
kanische Schiveizerzeitung, the foremost Swiss newspaper in America,
published since 1868 in German by the Swiss Publishing Company of
New York, is a weekly comprising eight pages and is circulated
throughout America. The Colonia Svizzera of San Francisco, Cali-
fornia, is an eight-page weekly newspaper for the Italo-Swiss on the
Pacific coast. The Sch'weizer-Journal of the same city is a six-page
weekly in German. The ofiicial organ of the North American
Schweizer Bund, St. Louis, Missouri, is Der Schweizer, a monthly.
In the eastern states, the French Swiss read the Courrier des Etats
Unis, a weekly of New York City. The list would not be complete
without mention of the Green County Herald, Monroe, Wisconsin,
and the Swiss American News, of Detroit.
Organizations. Like other immigrant groups, the Swiss have nu-
merous social, benevolent, and other organizations. The most im-
portant of these is the Nordamerikanische Schweizer Bund, with a
membership of about 8,000 and some 88 local branches, which has its
headquarters in St. Louis. The Helvetia Association of North Amer-
ica (Swiss Hotel Employees Mutual Benefit Society), the Nord
Amerikanischer Saengerhund (North American Singers Union) , and
the Swiss American Historical Society are other organizations na-
tional in scope. The Helvetia Mdnnerchor, a singing society, was
organized as early as 1858. In addition, the Swiss and their descend-
ants have some three hundred local organizations in the form of social
clubs, benevolent societies, singing societies, gymnastic and rifle clubs,
as well as music bands, in the various communities where their popu-
lation is large. We thus hear of the United Swiss Society of New
York, the Societa Ticinese of Paterson, New Jersey, the Chicago
Svidss Society, the San Francisco Helvetia Society, the Swiss Benevo-
SWISS AMERICANS
117
lent Society of Washington, D. C., the Swiss Mercantile Society of
New York, the Swiss Harmony of Hudson County (New Jersey
male chorus), and others.
The Swiss societies of all four languages, German, French, Italian,
and Romansch, usually join in celebrating the Swiss Independence
Day, in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence of the
three forest cantons (August, 1291). This occasion is marked by
speeches, picnics, outings, and amusements of various sorts.
Several charitable organizations have been formed, including the
Swiss Charitable Institution, organized by the Swiss residents in
New York as early as 1832; the Swiss Benevolent Society of the City
of New York; and the New York Swiss Club. On October 17,
1883, the Swiss Home on Second Avenue was opened.
In spite of the numerous Swiss organizations in America, it is
claimed by well-informed Swiss-American authorities that the Swiss
are perhaps more readily and rapidly assimilated into Aunerican life,
thought, and ideals than is any other immigrant group. This may
be true because of the traditions and experiences of democracy and
republicanism in their homeland and the lack of any powerful
memories of recent political, social, and religious struggles and con-
flicts which, otherwise, would have left them with a tendency to
retain their old-country attitudes.
Contributions to American Life
To write in full the biographies of the outstanding Americans of
Swiss origin would be to describe their part in the history of the
United States from its very beginning. We intimated this in the
first paragraph of this section. It might be noted also that in the
pre-Revolutionary period, among the British colonial troops, several
Swiss took prominent roles, as, for example, the generals Haldimand,
Prevost, Bouquet, de Meuron, Karren, and others. Bouquet, com-
mander-in-chief of the British forces on the southern front, conquered
Florida and became its governor-general; Augustin Prevost became
governor of Georgia.
As Switzerland possesses no distinct national culture and no national
language of its own, but is culturally and linguistically divided into
German, French, Italian, and Rhaeto-Romansch sections, it was
natural that the Swiss immigrants were generally better known to their
neighbors as Germans, Frenchmen, and Italians rather than as Swiss.
Consequently, the general American public knows relatively little
of the important contributions which the Swiss have made to the
“OLD” IMMIGRATION
ii8
building of this great American nation. Numerous, indeed, are the
geographical names of cities, towns, counties, rivers, and mountains
in the United States that testify to the constructive influence of the
industrious element that came from the old Alpine Repubhc of
Switzerland.
The most prominent figure of the long list of outstanding Swiss in
America is Albert Gallatin, who, as legislator, secretary of the United
States Treasury under Presidents Jefferson and Madison, diplomat,
and scientist, was in his time considered the most distinguished of all
foreign-born Americans. In his old age he fathered the American
Ethnological Society and New York University. Summing up his
career as a Jeffersonian party man, Henry Adams said: “That a young
foreigner, speaking with a foreign accent, laboring under all the
odium of the western insurrection (the Whiskey Rebellion), sur-
rounded by friendly rivals . . . should have at once seized the leader-
ship of his party and retained it . . . down to the last moment of his
service, and that he should have done so by sheer force of ability and
character, without ostentation and without tricks . . . made a curious
combination of triumphs. . . . His power lay in courage, honesty
of purpose, and thoroughness of study. . . .”
Among other descendants of Swiss origin who made a success of
their political careers mention should be made of Attorney General
William Wirt, Emmanuel Philipp, governor of Wisconsin, and
Colonel Good, war secretary to President Hoover. It would lead too
far to enumerate the long list of Congress members, and the like.
Note should be made of such names as Henry Rosenberg, of Claris,
at Galveston (Texas) and of George Hermann, of the Grisons, at
Houston (Texas), whose extraordinary luck was completely eclipsed
by General John August Sutter’s magnificent adventure. Sutter
was the founder of New Helvetia (now Sacramento, California), the
colonizer ruined by the gold of North California, who placed this
territory under the sovereignty of the United States. Jules Sandoz
(“Old Jules”), the eccentric trapper, surveyor and nurseryman of
Niobrara, was in all probabihty one of the last of the old Swiss settlers
in the United States.
Apart from these pioneers, who, as real old Swiss, loved a scrap
with the Red Indians, Switzerland provided the United States with
a series of officers of outstanding valor: the colonels Henry Bouquet,
hero of Bushy Run (Fort Pitt), and Christian Gratiot, the builder of
Fort Monroe; General Chatelain (Chetlain), who distinguished him-
self first in the Black Hawk War and later in the Civil War, together
SWISS AMERICANS
119
with his compatriots Gene als Naegeli (Negley), Lieb, ZoUikofer and
Ammann; not to mention the numerous colonels commanding entirely
Swiss forces. After Vice-Admiral Ammann, commanding the navy
under President Grant, other “Swiss admirals,” such as Edward W.
Eberle and R. de Steiguer, have sailed the seas in our own times.
Among industrialists and engineers, the following are selected as
representative: the Chevalleys and Meyenbergs (condensed milk);
Hersche (Hershey, chocolate); the Hubers and Schwarzenbachs
(silk); the WartenweUers (silver and copper mines); Berner (rail-
roads); Weber (window-frame maker); the churchbuilder Heer;
the famous engineers Noetzli, Sonderegger, and O. H. Ammann, all
of whom had studied in Switzerland; the ingenious mechanic John
Krusi, who carried out many of Edison’s ideas; and the film producer
WilHam Wyler.
A large number of churchmen have come from Switzerland at all
times. In the eighteenth century, Michael Schlatter and John Zublin
were founders and organizers of the Protestant Church in America.
In the nineteenth century Philipp Schaff was the most important theo-
logian in the United States. Among Catholics were Father Kundig,
the heroic fighter of cholera at Detroit (1843), and the two Mil-
waukee bishops, Mgrs. Henni and Messmer.
Famous doctors of Swiss origin may be enumerated by the dozen.
Dr. Henry Banga was the first to introduce antiseptic surgery to the
United States. Dr. Nicolas Senn, the brilliant professor of medicine
at Chicago, was chief surgeon to the expeditionary corps sent to Cuba.
His pupils of Swiss origin. Doctors Albrecht, Ochsner, and Holhger
must stiU be considered as being in a class of their own, and to those
may be added Doctors Dettwyler, Stamm, Nickles, and Steinach.
Dr. Carl Voegtlin directed the National Cancer Institute until 1943.
The nineteenth cdntury saw the arrival of a series of noteworthy
natural scientists, the Agassiz, Guyots, Lesquereux and Pourtales, all
from Neuchatel, whereas the great specialists in Indian ethnology,
Albert Gatschet and Adolphe Bandelier, came from Berne University.
Dr. Walter C. Reusser is head of the department of educational ad-
ministration at the University of Wyoming.
The Ritz-Delmonico-Tschirggi (Tschirky) trio recalls the fact that
the well-known Stviss talent for the hotel industry asserted itself in
America, as it did elsewhere. In particular, Oscar of the Waldorf
(Oscar Tschirky) was in 1944 one of the noble landmarks of New
York.
CHAPTER VI
"'Neiv” Immigration: Slavic States
A. RUSSIAN AMERICANS
Yaroslav J. Chyz and Joseph S. Roucek
T he term “Russian American” is used in this section to designate
immigrants and their descendants of real Russian (Great Russian)
or White Russian stock. The activities of Russian Jews and of
Russophile Ukrainians (some of whom call themselves Russians, Little
Russians, Carpatho-Russians or South Russians) are included only, in
cases when they are closely associated with Russian group life. No
distinction is made between the Russian proper and the White Russian
group.
Immigration
Western immigration. The Russians arrived in America from the
west and from the east. The first Russians to land on American
shores were probably the group of ten sailors sent out from the ship
Saint Pavel which explored the northwestern section of the American
continent under the leadership of Captain Alexei Chirikoff in 1741.
The landing party never returned to the ship, nor did another detach-
ment of six sailors sent in search of the first group. Another landing
was made the same year and month (July) from the ship Saint Peter
under the command of Captain Vitus Bering, a Dane, who shared
with Chirikoff the command of that first Russian expedition to
America. The islands of Kayak, Kodiak, and others were discovered
on that voyage.
For fifty years after the discoveries by Chirikoff and Bering, the
Aleutian Islands and the adjoining shore of Alaska were the hunting
grounds of Russian adventurers (promyshlenniki), who banded to-
gether in expeditions to haul the sea otter and other fur-bearing ani-
mals. The untold cruelties that they inflicted upon the natives were
the cause of many bloody uprisings and massacres by the natives.
In 1785, the first attempt to found a permanent colony on the
RUSSIAN AMERICANS
I2I
island of Kodiak was made by a Russian merchant, Grigor I. Shelikov.
In 1794, the first vessel was launched in northwestern America in
the Voskressenski harbor. The following year the first Russian
Orthodox Church on the American continent was built at Saint Paul,
Alaska. In 1804, Sitka was founded by Alexander Baranov (1747-
1819), the chief resident administrator of the Russian- American Com-
pany, a semi-official corporation entrusted by the Russian government
with the trade and regulation of that colony. The company was in
charge of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands until 1861. Six years later,
the Alaskan possession was sold to the United States for $7,200,000.
Out of Alaska the Russians sent a handful of colonists and native
Aleuts to the region of Bodega Bay in Cahfornia. They founded
there a colony that survived for almost thirty years (1812-1841).
The Mexican government did not confirm the right of Russians to
settle on its territory, and the colony was sold in 1841 to a Mexican
citizen of Swiss descent, John A. Sutter. Through various transac-
tions, the site of the colony, which became known as Fort Ross, be-
came the property of W. R. Hearst and was donated by him to the
state of California. It is now maintained as a state park with a few
buildings and the old church stiU standing.
In 1840 the churches and chapels maintained by the Russian
Orthodox Mission were organized into a separate diocese, which in
1861 consisted of 7 churches and 35 chapels. Later this Alaskan-
Aleutian Diocese was extended over the whole of North America.
The present Metropolitans of the Russian Orthodox Church in North
America are considered successors of the monk loannes (Innocentius)
Veniaminof, who was for years a missionary among the natives of
Alaska and who in 1 840 was appointed, under the name of Innokenty,
as the first bishop of the new Diocese.
The main impress left by more than 125 years of Russian occupation
of Alaska is today a number of Russian Orthodox parishes and chapels
attending to the spiritual needs of the natives, half-breeds, and a few
descendants of Russian colonists who chose to remain in Alaska and
its adjoining islands.
At the time when exiles and convicts were transported from Siberia
into the domain of the Russian-American Company, some of them
found a way to escape from there to Cahfornia, and thence east to
adjoining regions, especially the Indian Territory, which later became
the state of Oklahoma. In fact, the infiltration of Russians from the
west into the United States was constant; although for a long time
in small numbers. It consisted mainly of pohtical refugees, who tried
122
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
several times to band into societies. Finally the colonies in California,
especially San Francisco, grew to a considerable size, especially after
the transfer of the See of the Aleutian-Alaska Diocese to that city
in 1871.
Eastern hmnigratwn. The beginnings of Russian immigration
through the ports of the eastern part of America fall in the decade
between 1871 and 1880. Up to 1870 the American immigration
authorities had listed (for the years 1820-1870) only 3,886 immigrants
from Russia. However, the decade of 1871-1880 shows 39,284
persons who came to the United States from Russia. How many of
them were Russians and how many Russian Jews, Ukrainians, Lithu-
anians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, German Mennonites, and others
cannot be ascertained. The fact is that Russian immigration up to
1905 had been chiefly non-Russian; the Slavs from Russia, the Great
Russians, Little Russians, and White Russians, did not emigrate in
large numbers until after the revolution of 1905. American statistics
do not distinguish between Great, White, and Little Russians, but
there is reason to suppose that Great Russians predominated in the
Russian emigration up to 1905, while after that year Ukrainians and
White Russians emigrated in large numbers.
The first known Russian immigrant to the eastern part of North
America was Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, son of the Russian
ambassador to Holland, at the end of the eighteenth century. He
embraced the Roman Catholic faith and came to Maryland on October
28, 1792. He became the first CathoHc priest ordained in America
and worked as missionary first in Maryland and then in Pennsylvania.
Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, is named for him, and there is a monument
to his memory in Loretto, Pennsylvania, with a bronze statue given by
Charles M. Schwab, the great steel magnate. Otherwise, little is
known about the Russians who lived in the eastern sections of the
United States before 1870. Prominent among political emigres in
the seventies and eighties was Vladimir A. Stolishnikoff, former con-
federate of the well-known Russian revolutionaries Tkacheff and
Nechayeff. He was for some time the leader of the Russian progres-
sive colony in New York and made a name for himself as one of the
architects who designed plans for the building of the famous Carnegie
Hall in New York City. Serge E. Shevich was one of the founders
of the American Socialist Party. Peter A. DemyanoflF (Peter
Tverskoy, Captain Peter Demens) succeeded as an American business-
man, colonizer, and railroad builder. He founded the city of St.
Petersburg in Florida.
RUSSIAN AMERICANS
123
Political and religious persecution was the primary cause of mass
emigration from Russia. However, coupled with the religious and
political persecution, the economic conditions, mainly in the north-
western Russian provinces, caused the departure of many poor
peasants. A great mass of landless laborers emigrated to improve their
lot.
The years of the first World War stopped the influx of immigrants
from Russia almost entirely. The Russian Revolution and the subse-
quent establishment of the Soviet regime forced many Russians of the
old regime to seek refuge in the United States. In contrast to the
mass of prewar immigrants, the majority of these refugees belong to
the intelHgentsia, and therefore their presence in the United States
became more noticeable than that of hundreds of thousands of agri-
cultural and industrial workers, who for almost half a century had
contributed to America’s greatness by the sweat of their brows.
All authorities agree that, because of the complexity of the United
States immigration and census statistics regarding Russia, it is im-
possible to arrive at the correct number of Russians and their descend-
ants in America. Accordmgtothe 1940 United States census, 585,080
persons registered their “mother tongue” as Russian. After sub-
tracting Russian-speaking Jews, Ukrainians, Georgians, and other im-
migrants from Russia and their descendants, as well as Russophile
Ukrainians and Carpatho-Russians from Gahcia, Bukowina, and
Carpatho-Ukraine, who registered their language as Russian or
“Rusin,” the actual figure for immigrants from Russia proper and
White Russia and their descendants probably will not exceed 250,000.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Religion. The largest number of Russian Americans belong to
the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1876 the first Russian Orthodox
parish was organized in New York. Later the Russian Orthodox
Mission started proselyting among the Greek-Catholic Ukrainians
from Galicia and the northern part of Hungary; it was chiefly because
of the influence of that church that a part of the Ukrainian immigrants
in America still call themselves Russians. By 1944, some 80 per cent
of the membership of the Russian Orthodox Church consisted of
former Ukrainian Greek Catholics or Orthodox Ukrainians and their
descendants from the territories of the former Russian Empire. In
1936 this organization reported 229 churches and local organizations
with 89,510 members.
A large number of Russian immigrants belong to various Protestant
124
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
denominations. The most numerous is the group of the so-called
Molokms. Persecuted by the Russian government for their refusal
to conform to the dogmas and rites of the Orthodox Church, the
believers in the “milk of word” (milk in Russian — moloko), number-
ing several thousands, settled in 1903-1906 in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and other California towns. The members of another
Russian sect, the Doukhobors (Spirit-Wrestlers) emigrated at the
end of the nineteenth century to Canada, and many drifted in the
following years to Los Angeles and San Diego, California, and to
Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan, and to other cities. The Russian
weekly of Chicago, Rassvyet, used to have a special page for the
members of this sect. The Doukhobors tend to settle on farms. The
“Old Believers” settled in the vicinity of Pittsburgh (town of Essen) .
The largest number of Russians reside in Permsylvania, with fairly
large groups in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and
Alaska; lesser groups reside in many other states exclusive of the
southeastern section of the United States.
Occupations. Most of the prewar immigrants were peasants. But
only the sectarian settlements of Molokans and Doukhobors have suc-
ceeded in maintaining their fa^g colonies to a considerable extent.
Others farm either singly or in small groups attached to towns and
boroughs in South Dakota, Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In many
of these settlements they live side by side with Ukrainian immigrants,
and sometimes with Polish farmers. In 1940, over 33,000 persons
who registered their “mother tongue” as Russian were found living
and working on farms. The majority of the Russians, however, are
occupied in American industries in large cities such as New York,
Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Gary, and so on. Many of them
are employed in coal mines and steel works in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
West Virginia. There are numerous Russian fruitgrowers in Florida
and California. Lumber areas of Washington and Michigan, fisheries
on the Pacific coast, and such industries as tailoring, house-wrecking,
and restaurant work have their share of Russian labor. Many of the
postwar immigrants have risen to desirable high social positions.
Organizations. Of all Slavic immigrants, the Russians have shown
the least inclination for organized social life. A great majority of their
associations have been short-lived. The oldest Russian society in
America, the Association of Decembrists (so narned in memory of the
fiirst liberal Russian uprising in December, 1825) was founded in 1867
by A. Honcharenko, a Ukrainian priest, in San Francisco. Another
RUSSIAN AMERICANS
125
short-lived society, the Russian Circle of Mutual Aid, was founded
in New York in March, 1872. In the eighties, many societies were
founded by Russians and Russian Jews in New York, chiefly for the
purpose of helping new immigrants. Out of the Russian Social-
Democratic Society, founded in New York in 1891, grew the Russian
Federation of the Socialist Party of America, which had forty
branches in 1918; the radical faction of it became the Russian sec-
tion of the Communist Party. The Federation of Russian Work-
ers, an anarchist association, had in 1918 fourteen branches in nine
eastern states and among the lumberjacks in Oregon. In 1926 the
Russian Consolidated Mumal Aid Society (known as the Roova)
was founded; it conducts a school for children, owns a building in
New York City, and promotes a Russian farm settlement near Cass-
ville. New Jersey. There are two other Russian fraternal associa-
tions, the American Russian Fraternal Society, Section of the Inter-
national Workers Order, and the Russian Independent Mutual Aid
Society of Chicago. On January i, 1944, there were 2 1,248 members
in these three associations, organized in some 150 local branches.
The organizations of immigrants who arrived in the United States
after World War I, and who were predominantly refugees from the
Soviet regime, can be divided into two groups: those trying to pre-
serve the memories of the prerevolutionary Russia (the Society of the
Russian Imperial Guard, the Russian Navy OfEcers’ Group, the St.
Andrew’s Cross Society); and those aiming to promote their occu-
pational interests (the Russian Physicians’ Society, the Society of
Friends of Russian Culture, the Union of Russian Painters and Artists,
the Russian Lawyers’ Association, the Fund for the Relief of Men
of Letters and Scientists).
The press. The first Russian newspaper in America was the semi-
monthly Alaska Herald, published by Reverend Ahapiy Honcharenko
in San Francisco in 1868-1869 in Russian and in English, Mr.
Villchur lists in his Russians in America thirty-four publications for
the period from 1910-1918, but only a few of them stiU exist. Today
five dailies and fourteen weeklies, semimonthlies, monthlies, and
quarterhes are published, some of them on a very high level, with
excellent analyses of current events and of contemjporary Russian liter-
ature.
Contributions to American Life
Together with Americans and other immigrant workers, the Russian
immigrants have helped to build this country. Russian and Ukrainian
126
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
farmers, furthermore, brought with them numerous varieties of seeds
which proved very suitable to American climate and soil and which
are now widely used by American agriculturalists; “beardless Fife,”
“Kubanka,” “Crimean,” Amautka,” “Kharkov,” “Malakhoff,” and
other kinds of wheat are used extensively in agricultural middle
western states. Kherson oats are now planted in Iowa, Illinois,
Kansas, Nebraska, and the southern part of Wisconsin. Rye, buck-
wheat, alfalfa, sunflowers, millet, and other seeds found their way
from Russian Ukraine, the Volga and Kuban regions, and from
Turkestan to the American prairies of the Middle West, brought by
Russian Molokans and Doukhobors, German Mennonites, and
Ukrainian “Shtoondisty.”
Russian contributions to the American cultural and spiritual life
are twofold. Some of them may be considered of an international
character and would have been made without the arrival of Russian
immigrants in the United States. The music of Tschaikovsky and
Glinka, the works of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, and Chekhov,
the scientific contributions of Mechnikoff, Mendeleyeff, and Pavlov
would have found their way into American cultural life regardless of
Russian immigration. The same can be said of the dancers Pavlova,
Nijinsky, and Fokine, the siugers Chaliapin and Lipkovskaya, the
actors Nazimova, Baklanova, and Balieff, and scores of others who
have influenced American art.
On the other hand, the direct influence of Russian immigration
cannot be overlooked. The progressive movement in the United
States, especially its socialist wing, was to a large degree stimulated
in the last two decades of the nineteenth century by political emigres
from Russia, such as Serge Shevich, one of the founders of the Social-
ist Labor Party, Leo Hartman, and Maurice Hillquit. Later,
Leon Trotsky, Nicholas Bukharin, and others laid the foundations
for the communist movement in America. Whether or not this
is a contribution depends on the reader’s political and social
opinions.
The persecution by the former Czarist and the present Soviet
governments is largely responsible for an extraordinarily large number
of Ru^an scientists and thinkers in America, now on the faculties of
many of our universities. Possibly the most outstanding are: M. T.
Florinsky, economics, Columbia University; Alexander Petrunkevich,
zoology, G. V. Vernadsky, and Michael Rostovtzeff, history, Yale
University; Michael Karpovich, history, and S. Menkin, physiology.
Harvard University; Paul Studenski, public finance. New York Uni-
UKRAINIAN AMERICANS
127
versity; Alexander A. Vasilieff, ancient history, University of Wis-
consin; Stephen P. Timoshenko, architectural mechanics, Cornell Uni-
versity; and Andrew Avinoff, director of the Carnegie Museum and
professor of zoology. University of Pittsburgh. Professor Pitirim A.
Sorokin, head of the sociology department of Harvard University, is
the author of a number of outstanding works in sociology; his Con-
temporary Sociological Theories and Social a?id Cultural Dynamics
are classics in their fields.
Igor Sikorsky, one of the foremost aeroplane builders in the world,
has built with his staff of several Russian engineers some of the
sturdiest types of aeroplanes used in American civil and military
aerial transportation. Boris V. Sergievsky, a flier and co-worker of
Sikorsky, has established several flying records for various types of
aeroplanes. Alexander de Seversky’s books, articles, lectures, and
radio talks contributed greatly to the awakening of military and
civilian “airmindedness” in America.
In the music and art of America, Russian names abound. One need
only mention Sergei Rachmaninoff, pianist and composer, Ossip
Gabrilowitch, composer, Alexander Zilotti, conductor and composer,
Feodore Chaliapin, basso, Maria Kurenko, soprano, and numerous
others. In films, Nazimova, Baklanova, Ouspenskaya, Akim Tamirov,
Gregory Ratoff , Mischa Auer, and, on the stage, Eugenie Leontovitch,
made names for themselves. Nicholas Roerich is the famed founder
of the Roerich Museum in New York City.
B. UKRAINIAN AMERICANS
Yaroslav J. Chyz and Joseph S. Roucek
Ukrainian immigrants and their descendants are knovra in the
United States under several names. The United States census of
ipro and 1920 listed them as “Ruthenians,” in 1930 as “Ukrainians”
and “Ruthenians,” and in 1940 as “Ukrainians.” The United States
Bureau of Immigration registered them as “Ruthenians (Russniaks)”
and lately as “Ukrainians.” Some writers follow the old Czarist
terminology and call them “Little Russians.” Certain subdivisions
of the group insist on being called “Carpatho-Russians,” “Rusins,”
or “Russians.”
Despite the varied names, they belong to the same ethnic group and
come from the same country where, according to the Encyclopedia
Americana, “from the Vislok to the Kuban and from Pripet to the
Black Sea the Ukrainian people constitute a uniform anthropological
128 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
type.” ' They speak the same language and have the same cultural
background. In the United States they live usually in the same com-
munities, regardless of what they call themselves, often belong to the
same churches, and are interested in the same political and religious
problems. The various names are either a remnant of the foreign
rule under which subjugated nationalities were known by names given
to them by their conquerors — ^in the case of Ukrainians by the Rus-
sians, Poles, Austrians, or Hungarians — or are an indication of the
political or religious attitude of a section of the group.
In this discussion, the term “Ukrainian” is used for all subdivisions
of Ukr ainian immigrants and their descendants. Where necessary,
particular groups are referred to by the name they prefer to call them-
selves.
Immigration
Records of first settlers in the American colonies, passenger lists of
ships arriving here in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, army
rolls of the Revolutionary War, and especially the chronicles of the
discovery and settlement of Alaska, register numerous Slavonic names.
Many of these names are similar to, or identical with, the names
common among Ukrainians of that time. In some cases the bearers
of such names are described as being from Poland or from Russia,
which between them ruled over Ukraine. It can be assumed, there-
fore, that Ukrainians were also represented among those early Slavic
settlers in America. The tendency to consider the bearers of such
Ukr ainian names as Russians or Poles would be as fallacious as to
assert that all immigrants from recent Poland or Russia are either
Poles or Russians.
However this may be, the first known Ukrainian immigrant,
Andreas Agapius Honcharenko, an Orthodox priest from Kiev, did
not arrive until the year 1865. He escaped from persecution by the
Russian government for his revolutionary activities. Three years
later he became editor of the Alaska Herald, a semimonthly in English
and in Russian, published in San Francisco. The paper was sub-
sidized at the beginning by federal agencies for Alaska as a means
of instructing the inhabitants of the newly acquired territory about
American laws and customs. Later on he was active in helping polit-
ical refugees from Czarist Russia. He died on Kis farm, named
“Ukraine,” in Hayward, Cahfomia, in 1916. A Liberty ship was
named after him in the second World War.
The actual history of Ukrainian immigration begins in the seventies
UKRAINIAN AMERICANS
129
of the last century, when large groups of Ukrainian peasants from
the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains began to arrive. The moun-
tain regions of the Austrian province of Galicia and of northern
Hungary, populated by impoverished, land-hungry, overtaxed and
overmortgaged peasants, had been an important source of cheap labor
for the estates of Polish and Hungarian nobles. At that time Amer-
ican industry was recovering from the depression of 1873-1876. In
addition, the American mill and mine owners wanted to break the
growing union movement of their workers by importing cheap labor
from Europe. Some of the agents, referred to in the preceding
chapter, reached the regions on the border between Galicia and
Hungary and caused mass emigration despite various countermeasures
of the Austro-Hungarian government. The Ukrainian immigrants
began to arrive in ever-increasing numbers, first to the coal mines
around Shenandoah and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, later to all larger
American industrial centers. Several hundreds of them were induced
to sign contracts that they did not understand and were transported
(by way of Cape Horn) to the sugar plantations in the Hawaiian
Islands.
Political and religious persecution was another cause of Ukrainian
immigration. Thousands of young men arrived from Austria, Hun-
gary, and Russia, and in the postwar period also from Poland and
Roumania, in order to escape punishment for pohtical offenses or to
avoid mihtary conscription. Several thousands of Protestant peasants
from the Russian Ukraine — “Shtoondisty,” a sect somewhat similar to
the Mennonites — settled first in Virginia and then in North Dakota,
escaping severe persecution of the Czarist government and of the
official Russian Orthodox Church during the decade preceding the
first Russian Revolution of 1905.
Statistics. The United States census of 1940 lists 83,600 persons
who registered their mother tongue as Ukrainian. Probably an equal
number of Ukrainians who prefer to call themselves Russians,
Carpatho-Russians, or Rusins fisted their mother tongue as Russian.
With over half a million members of the Ukrainian and Ruthenian
Catholic dioceses and some 150,000 members of various Orthodox
and other religious bodies, the mother-tongue figures seem to be
entirely inadequate as an estimate of the Ukrainian American group.
The figure of 700,000 for all Ukrainian immigrants and their descend-
ants, with three fifths of this number comprising those Ukrainian
Americans who prefer to call themselves Carpatho-Russians or Rus-
sians, seems to be a fair minimum estimate.
130
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
Distribution. The largest center of Ukrainian Americans is the
soft coal and foundry region of southwestern Pennsylvania around the
city of Pittsburgh. There 153 out of the 374 Ukrainian colonies in
Pennsylvania are located. Pittsburgh alone has from fifteen to twenty
or more thousand Ukrainians. Another area with a large number
of Ukrainians is the hard coal region of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and
Pottsville, also in Pennsylvania, where men work mostly in anthracite
mines and women in silk mills. During the second World War, many
Pennsylvania Ukrainians, especially from the hard coal region, moved
to large industrial centers in other states, especially to northern New
Jersey and to Connecticut. The third center in Pennsylvania is
Philadelphia, with from ten to fifteen thousand Ukrainians. New
York City, with some 35,000 Ukrainians, has by far the largest group
in any one city, and large colonies are in neighboring towns across the
Hudson River in New Jersey, having come there especially after
that region became an important center of war industries. Some
20,000 Ukrainians are in Newark, and large numbers of them are in
Paterson, Passaic, Elizabeth, and New Brunswick. Chicago has
about 2 5,000 persons of Ukrainian birth and descent, and Detroit has
probably the same number, a result of the boom of its industries during
the war.
Occupations. Some 80 per cent of American Ukrainians live in
cities and work in coal mines (anthracite and bituminous), foundries,
textile nulls, automobile and aeroplane factories, restaurants, on rail-
roads, as window cleaners, and in building trades. The rest of them
live in rural regions, work in lumber camps and small local industries,
and some 50,000 or more of them live and work on farms. Compact
farmers’ communities are in North Dakota (Kiev, Russo, Max, Butte,
Ukrama, Gorham) ; smaller groups are on Long Island, around Syra-
cuse, Albany, and Saratoga, New York; Holyoke and Deerfield,
Massachusets; Harrah, Oklahoma; Scobey, Montana; Clayton, Wis-
consin; Chisholm, Minnesota; with scattered farmers throughout
Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey (Nova Ukraina),
Florida, and Texas.
Several thousand Ukrainians serve their communities as grocers,
butchers, tailors, and undertakers, with a number of them in other
fields of business on a larger scale. In the cities, the second and
third generations enter all fields of gainful occupation, with thousands
of them working as bookkeepers, stenographers, office clerks, public
and high-school teachers, lawyers, physicans, college professors, and in
other professions.
UKRAINIAN AMERICANS 131
Political divisions. The conditions in their country of origin and
the attitude toward its past and future caused the main divisions among
the Ukrainian Americans. They all resented the oppressive political
and economic conditions that had forced them to emigrate. They
differed on ways and methods by which those conditions could and
should be changed and improved.
One group favors development of the national culture, promotion
of political organization, and strengthening of economic power of the
Ukrainian people so that they can achieve “an equal status of
souvereignty and equal measure of independence” with their neigh-
bors, especially Poland and Russia. A large part of that group speaks
outrightly about an independent Ukrainian state as the ultimate goal.
The supporters of these ideals use the name “Ukrainian” in place of all
other local or foreign designations, even those of them who consider
the present status of Ukraine in the Soviet Union as fulfillment of this
ideal.
The second group used to turn their eyes toward Russia as the
traditional enemy of Poland and Austria. They pinned their hopes
on cultural and political unity with Russia and manifested their con-
victions by calling themselves “Russians.” In 1944, some of them
were trying to transfer their hopes to the Soviet Union, although they
still shied away from ties with Soviet Ukraine, the very existence of
which, as a separate entity, they had once denied.
The third group is composed mainly of immigrants from former
Hungary. Their country became in 1918 part of the Czechoslovak
Republic under the name of Podkarpatska Rus. After a short period
of autonomous existence as Carpatho-Ukraine in 1939, the country
was in March of that year occupied by Hungary. For a long period
these Ukrainians were dominated by their Magyarized priests, and
only after the tragic events in their country of origin did they become
more interested in the problems of their kinsmen abroad. Most of
them would like to see their “old country” freed from Hungarian
occupation, although there is no unity among them as to whether
it should rejoin Czechoslovakia, or become a part of Ukraine or
directly of the Soviet Union.
The struggle between clericalism and secularism in political life,
between conservative nationalism and socialism, between communist
and fascist propaganda during the period between the two wars, have
played important parts in further political differentiation of the group
as to their attitudes toward the problems of Ukraine. In American
politics, they divided in the same way as the rest of their co-citizens.
132
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
Some of them are Democrats, some Republicans, Socialists, or Com-
munists. Most of those who are workers belong to unions. All of
them practice democracy in their organizational life.
Regarding problems arising from the second World War, all
Ukrainian Americans are opposed to the enslavement of their country
of origin by the Nazi Herrenvolk and by Hungarian overlords.
They vary as to the further fate of Ukraine. Although none of
them wants the return of Polish rule in western Ukraine, and many
oppose further union of Carpatho-Ukraine with Czechoslovakia, the
various degrees of mistrust toward the Soviet Union find expression
in demands of safeguards for their autonomy. A large group, as in
the last war, continues to advocate full indepedence for all Ukrainian
territories in Europe.
Religio?!. Originally all immigrants from Austria-Hungary, with
the exception of those from the province of Bukowina, were of the
Greek Catholic religion, which acknowledges the Pope as the head
of the church but retains Eastern rites, including marriage of clergy.
Various circumstances, among them extensive Russian Orthodox
(Czaiist) propaganda, induced scores of parishes to join that church.
In order to put a stop to this movement, a Greek Catholic Diocese
with a separate bishop of Ukrainian nationality was created in 1907.
Later on, in 1924, another Greek Catholic Diocese was established for
the immigrants from Carpatho-Ukraine. Dissensions within those
two dioceses brought about organization of two Ukrainian dioceses
and one Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, with several “inde-
pendent” parishes to both. The Protestant (Presbyterian, Methodist,
and Baptist) missions made little headway among Ukrainian Amer-
icans. The “Shtoondisty” of North Dakota, organized in several
Adventist, Mennonite, Baptist, and independent congregations, form
the largest Protestant body among Ukrainian Americans.
The Ukrainian Catholic Diocese maintains a college, two high
schools, and a score of parochial public schools, as well as a museum
in Stamford, Connecticut, and two orphanages, in Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania, and in Chesapeake, Maryland. The Ruthenian Greek
Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, helps to maintan an
orphanage in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania, and several parochial schools.
Other dioceses take care of the courses for candidates for priesthood.
Almost all parishes maintain classes in which the children are taught
to read and write in Ukrainian.
Many Ukrainian Americans of Russophile leanings belong to the
Russian Orthodox Church in which they form a decided majority.
UKRAINIAN AMERICANS 133
Organizations. Fourteen fraternal organizations, with more than
180,000 members in close to 4,000 lodges, had at the beginning of the
year 1944 almost thirty-two million dollars in their treasuries. The
oldest of them, the Greek Catholic Union of Russian Brotherhoods,
with headquarters in Homestead, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1892.
It was followed by the Ukrainian National Association of Jersey City,
New Jersey, founded in 1894. Russophile propaganda among the
Ukrainians from Austria resulted a year later in the founding of the
Russian Orthodox CathoHc Mutual Aid Society of Wilkes-Barre, and
the struggle against clericalism gave birth to the Ukrainian Working-
men’s Association of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Religious and political
divisions caused further splits in then existing associations or the
creation of new ones.
Outside of churches and fraternal organizations, the Ukrainian
Americans are banded together in many national and local societies
and clubs whose aim is to promote social and cultural life or to support
some political cause. In more than a hundred communities, Ukrain-
ian or Carpatho-Russian “national homes” are maintained. They
usually have a hall for meetings, amateur shows, and concerts, with
rooms for evening classes, clubs, and other social activities. Local
reading circles, athletic and sports clubs, welfare societies and polit-
ical groups, have their meeting places in such homes. Almost every
community has a “citizens’ club” through which American citizens
of Ukrainian birth and descent participate in pohtics. They often
succeed in placing their members in municipal and county ofiSces,
especially in Pennsylvania. Second-generation Ukrainian Americans
won seats in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and
other legislatures or state offices in those states. During the second
World War, Ukrainian local and regional committees helped to
sell tens of millions of dollars’ worth of war bonds and collected
considerable contributions for the American Red Cross, the United
Service Organizations (USO), and for various other forms of war
relief.
The press. Over 150 newspapers and periodicals have been started
by Ukrainian Americans since 1886, when their first biweekly,
America, made its appearance in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania; many of
them have been discontinued, others merged, so that in 1944 the
Ukrainian group was served by twenty-eight publications. Fourteen
of them — ^two dailies, five semiweeklies and weeklies, seven semi-
monthlies and monthlies^are printed in Ukrainian with occasional
English pages; two are in English; and twelve — ^five semiweeklies and
134
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
weeklies and seven monthlies — are printed in Carpathian dialects of
the Ukrainian language or in Russian.
Contributions to American Life
The Ukrainian immigrant, as a worker, contributed to America s
development not only by his ‘^weat and brawn” but also by^ his
honesty and sense of justice. It was this sense of justice and willing-
ness to fight for it that made the Ukrainian and other Slavonic miners
of Pennsylvania the mainstay of strikes, which, after four previous
failures, resulted at the beginning of this century in the establishment
of labor unions in the coal industry. They, with other newer immi-
grants, played important roles in unionizing the steel, rubber, auto-
mobile, and other industries.
Ukrainian Americans also contributed to the material and cultural
development of America through the scientific knowledge and artistic
talents of their more gifted individuals and by introducing into the
American pattern many cultural values of their native land.
Alexander Archipenko’s masterpieces adorn the sculptural sections
of several American museums. Many of them have been created in
his studios in Long Island and CaHfomia. After conducting several
successful tours with Ukrainian choirs throughout the United States,
Professor Alexander Koshetz settled in New York, where, until his
death in September, 1944, at the age of 69, he occasionally conducted
several choirs and at the same time published his own compositions
and choral arrangements of Ukrainian songs for American choruses.
A set of twenty songs arranged and conducted by 'him was recently
recorded by thankful countrymen in order to preserve his art for
posterity.
Composers Michael Hayvoronsky, Pavlo Pecheniha-Ouglitzky,
Roman Prydatkevych, and Anthony Rudnicky live in or around New
York and have made names for themselves in even wider circles.
New York opera goers still remember the performances of Adam
Didur, a Ukrainian by birth, and Philadelphians the performances of
Ivan Steshenko. Movie star Anna Sten is the daughter of a Swedish
mother and a Ukrainian father. American-born film actors “Iron
Mike” Mazurki (Mazurkevich) and John Hodiak, as well as movie
director Edward Dmytryk, are of Ukrainian descent.
Cartoons by John Rosol (Rosolovich) are enjoyed by millions of
readers of American and English magazines. Vladimir Tytla assisted
Walter Disney in his “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and in
other masterpieces.
POLISH AMERICANS 135
In sports, Dr. George Kojac of New York established the Olympic
record in back-stroke swimming in 1928. Bronko Nagurski became
an all-time legend of the gridiron. Peter Pick and John Trepak rank
among the best American swimmers and weight lifters, respectively.
Sabin A. Sochocky’s invention of radium paint and the subsequent
manufacture of luminous watch hands brought about his untimely
death from radium poisoning in 1928. Mirko Paneyko’s equipment
for acoustic electrical sound reproduction, installed in several of Amer-
ica’s largest auditoriums, enables the audience to hear music repro-
duced without distortion. Volodymyr Dzus invented fasteners
which he produces in two factories in the United States and one in
England; these are used on all airplanes of the United Nations.
Volodymyr Timoshenko’s work on the economics of Ukraine and
Russia secured him a professorship, first at the University of Michigan
and later at Stanford University, California. Alexander Nepritzky-
Granovsky is professor of entomology at the University of Minnesota.
Ukrainian melodies inspired many compositions of George Gersh-
win, among them the well-known song “Don’t Forget Me” from the
operetta Song of the Flame. Lively Ukrainian dances popularized
in America and Canada by Vasil Avramenko not only helped to
revive interest in folk dancing in general, but also are finding their
way, as Allen H. Eaton in Immigrant Gifts to American Life pre-
dicted, “into the stream of our culture.” Many steps and figures in
dances of modern American youth can be traced directly to Ukrainian
“Arkan,” “Kozachok,” “Metelytzia,” or “Zaporozhsky Herts.”
American cakes, macaroni, and pastry are made from well-known
Ukrainian kinds of wheat, such as “Kubanka,” “Crimean,” and
“Kharkov,” which have been found very suitable for the climate and
soil of the American and Canadian prairie states. Such dishes as
“borshtch,” “kasha,” “blintzi,” and “vareniki,” popular in Jewish and
Russian restaurants in America, are the usual dishes of the farmers
of Ukraine and were brought here by Ukrainian, Jewish, and other
immigrants from that country.
C. POLISH AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
Although the Polish Americans, just like most other central-eastern
European immigrants, are considered only recent arrivals, Poles have
played an important part in the building of America since colonial
times. They were among the settlers led by Captain John Smith at
1 36 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and staged what was doubtless one of
America’s first strikes until they were permitted to vote like the
English for members of the House of Burgesses.
Peter Stuyvesant, recognizing Poles as valuable farming and fight-
ing colonists, induced them to settle in New Holland (New York) .
As early as 1662, Dr. Alexander Kurcyusz founded in New York
one of the first institutions of learning in America. John Sadowski
set up a trading post in 1735 that was the forerunner of the busy
industrial city of Sandusky, Ohio. His two sons were companions
of Daniel Boone in many of his exploits.
Poles were generously sprinkled in the thirteen colonies at the
time of the Revolution and contributed to the ultimate freedom of
America. They had been in Delaware as early as 1650, and William
Penn numbered them among his loyal settlers. Most famous of the
early Polish Americans was Kosciuszko, who joined the army of the
Revolution in 1 776, rose to the rank of colonel of artillery, and became
General Washington’s adjutant; Congress awarded him American citi-
zenship, a pension with landed estates, and the rank of brigadier
general. Pulaski was another noted Pole who aided the youthful
United States.
Immigration
Polish migration on a large scale did not begin until about 1832,
after a political uprising in Poland. In that year, in 1 848, and in the
i88o’s, economic and political disturbances in the old world gave
impetus to emigration. By i860, Poles were found in all the states
in the Union, the greatest number of them being located in New York,
Texas, California (attracted there by the gold rush in 1850), Wis-
consin, and Michigan. The first large Polish colonies were organized
in Texas, and in 1854 the foundation of the towns of Panna Maria
and Czechstochowa, still in existence, were laid. Other groups
founded the towns of Polonia, Wisconsin, and Parisville, Michigan,
near Detroit. A Polish family from West Prussia settled in Portage
County, Wisconsin, one of the most prosperous rural communities of
today.
The unsuccessful revolt of 1863 brought another group of the
nationalistic Poles to this country. Many came to Chicago, and a
great many of these settled in a single area on the West Side, from
Seventeenth to Twentieth streets, between Faflin and Hoyne Avenues.
Bismarck’s Prussianizing policy of 1870 gave an 'impetus to further
immigration. The great tide of Polish immigration began in the
POLISH AMERICANS 137
eighties, and was motivated, in general, and in contrast to previous
immigration, by economic rather than political conditions. After
1885 many Poles, who had been engaged in industrial pursuits in the
cities, were attracted by advertisements of cheap land and settled on
farms in Wisconsin and the Dakotas. The Russian economic crisis of
1901-1903, and the effects of the revolutionary troubles of 1905,
increased the immigration from the Polish districts of Russia. In the
decade and a half just preceding World War I, the volume was the
greatest. This inflow concentrated in the new industrial cities, along
the Great Lakes, in the mining and industrial districts of Pennsyl-
vania, and on the northeastern coast of the United States. The
Jewish element went mostly into the sweat-shop industries in their
homes, and especially the tailoring business in New York. Most of
some two million Jews of New York are of eastern European (and
thus also PoHsh) origin.
Today there are about 4,000,000 Poles widely distributed over the
United States. About 80 per cent of them are naturahzed.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
According to the 1940 census, Chicago has the largest Polish popu-
lation of any city in the United States, with about half a million; it is
the second largest “Pohsh” city in the world. Detroit, next in rank,
has approximately 300,000, and New York City has about 200,000.
These figures include native-born Poles and inhabitants of Polish
descent.
Other large cities that have considerable Polish settlements are
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jersey City and Newark, New Jersey, Cleve-
land, Ohio, and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. In general, nearly half
of the Poles live in the Middle Atlantic states. New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania; about one third in the East North Central division;
and one tenth in New England. They have given Polish names to
a number of minor settlements. Thus we find Ponan in Illinois,
Polishville in Iowa, Wilno in Michigan, Pulaski and Krakow in Mis-
souri, Kxakow and Pilzno in Nebraska, Warsaw in North Dakota,
Czestochowa, Panna Maria, Kosciuszko, and Polonia in Texas, and
Krakow, Polonia, Pulaski, and Sobieski in Wisconsin.
Occupations. Most of the immigrants from Poland were landless
peasants, laborers, and small tradesmen in the old country. While
Polish farmers are to be found in states from coast to coast, only one
out of ten Poles in the United States tills the soil. The largest number
of Poles are employed in industry, particularly in sugar refineries,
“NEW” LMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
138
cotton, mills, furniture factories, mines, steel mills, automobile plants,
and in the lumber industry in the Northwest.
Wherever the Polish settlers started farming, they have been nearly
uniformly successful, especially when they took up farms abandoned
by Americans and coaxed out of them a good living. This is partic-
ularly pronounced in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the Poles
have taken over a large part of the Connecticut River Valley. But
the largest number of American Poles is employed in sugar refineries,
agricultural implement and vehicle establishments, cotton mills, furni-
ture factories, bituminous coal mines, slaughtering and meat packing,
and leather manufacturing industries, in the textile mills of New
England, the mines and steel mills of Pennsylvania, the steel works
of Gary, the great Ford factories, and the lumber camps of the
Pacific coast.
Organizations. There are some 10,000 Polish dramatic, literary,
singing, social, religious, and athletic societies in America, such as the
Alliance of Polish Literary and Dramatic Circles of America, the
PoHsh Army Veterans’ Association, the Pulaski Legion of America,
and the Polish Associated Federal Employees. There are also various
national Polish organizations to which belong approximately 750,000
members. The Polish Roman Catholic Union in America was
founded in 1874 and has now some 180,000 members and around
thirteen million dollars in reserve funds. The Pohsh National Alli-
ance, organized in 1879, has 275,000 members and 2,300 branches in
twenty-six states, and is the largest organization of any immigrant
group in the United States. These and other organizations have
local lodges, which, especially those affiliated with the parishes, usually
have mutual benefit provisions as their main purpose, together with
musical, educational, charitable, gymnastic, agricultural, industrial,
and purely social departments.
Religion. The Roman Catholic Church has functioned more
largely than any other one organized force in keeping alive the
national aspirations in Poland. The Pohsh Americans, at least a
majority of them, retain this attitude and remain at heart Roman
Catholics. Most of the philanthropic and social societies are, in fact,
afiihated with the church, which is also a tremendous educational
institution. There are 830 Polish Roman Catholic parishes and
eighty-three Polish Roman Catholic Missions in the United States,
fourteen orphanages, three seminaries each for men and for women.
A comparatively small minority of Poles belong to the Polish Na-
tional Catholic Church. A convention of independent congregations
POLISH AMERICANS
139
was held at Scranton, Pennsylvania, in September, 1904, under Rever-
end Francis Hodur, who was elected bishop of the new group. The
church maintains its own theological Savonarola Seminary at Scran-
ton and has its weekly organ, the Straz. In 1944 this church had 146
parishes in four dioceses, 148 priests, and the membership, in round
numbers, of 95,000 families (about 400,000 persons). The Right
Reverend Hodur is Primate Bishop. There were four other bishops
in America and one in Poland (imprisoned by Germans in a concen-
tration camp). From the Cathohc point of view the Polish National
Church is regarded as Protestant and of negligible importance.
The Protestant work among the Polish Americans is rather insig-
nificant. American Protestant churches — Baptists, Methodists, Epis-
copalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians — support home mis-
sions among the Poles. Of course there are many Poles not affiliated
with any religious organization.
Considerably more than any other Slav group in America, the Poles
support a surprisingly large number of educational institutions of
learning. The situation in Chicago, described above, may be taken
as typical. In the United States there are 560 Polish Roman Catholic
parochial schools with approximately 300,000 children and over 5,000
teachers. On the secondary school level there are twelve Polish
Cathohc high schools for girls, nine Polish high schools for boys, and
nineteen Polish coeducational schools, all conducted by parishes. In
addition, the Poles support some twenty-seven seminaries, nonnal
schools, and other institutions of learning, conducted by different reh-
gious orders, and several colleges, including St. Stanislaus, Chicago;
St. Mary’s College, Orchard Lake, Michigan; the Alliance College,
Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania; and St. John Kanty College, Erie,
Pennsylvania. The Polish National Affiance College, founded in
1912, belongs to this nonsectarian organization. A great deal of
educational work is carried on also by the Kosciuszko Foundation,
established in 1925, which promotes cultural and intellectual relations
between Poland and America and arranges especially for exchange
scholarships.
The press. Before the depression, the Polish Americans were
represented by some 100 periodicals. By 1930, there were fifteen
daffies, one semiweekly, sixty-four weeklies, four biweeklies, forty-
one monthlies, and three quarterlies; during the depression, the number
of dailies dropped to eleven. The oldest Pohsh daily is the Kurjer
Polski, founded in 1 888 in Milwaukee. Most of the periodicals serve
the interest of various organizations, others propound the political
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
140
leanings of various groups, and the remainder serve the interest of
a locality. Nearly all Polish periodicals contain material in English
for the younger generation. Sports articles lead in space here set
aside for Enghsh material. This is due to the fact that Poles are well
represented in practically every Hne of sport, and especially in foot-
ball.^
New York and Pennsylvania have fourteen Polish publications
each, Illinois ten, Michigan nine, and Wisconsin six. The location
of the Polish-language press in the key states indicates the importance
that the Polish vote might have in the presidential elections.
Political activities. Because of their gradual assimilation, Poles are
beginning to play an increasingly important part in American politics.
In the coal regions around Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,
they have been able to dominate some municipahties, in some cases
with unfortunate results — characteristic of minority groups which
suddenly come to power. Hamtramck, Michigan, is almost exclu-
sively governed by Poles.^ In and around Detroit and Chicago the
Poles hold numerous state and county positions.
When Hitler’s threat against Poland appeared on the horizon, the
Polish Americans, as during World War I, offered their help to the
cause of the homeland. Universally they were eager to avenge what
the Nazis did to Poland. But with the changing fortunes of the war,
when Russia eventually became one of the allies of England and the
United States, the four largest Polish fraternal organizations refused
to take part — at the beginning, at least — in the American Slav Con-
gress, partly because they suspected the Slav Congress of left-wing
endeavor, partly because they opposed United States aid to Russia.
Yet all four organizations, and the superimposed Polish American
Council, were loyal in their support of the United States war effort
and hated the Nazis fanatically. But while Russia’s former Polish
war prisoners in the meantime formed new army divisions, eager to
fight the Germans even under Russian command, minority factions
of the United States Polish community had the somewhat quixotic
notion that their decimated people could still afford to count both
Germany and Russia among their enemies. When Polish Prime
Minister Sikorski tried to make the Polish Americans understand his
conciliatory attitude toward Russia, he met with some opposition.
A poll organized in the summer of 1943 by United States govem-
1 See “Steelworker’s Boy,” Time, XLII, 22 (November 29, 1943), p. 21, which
describes the football career of Casimir John Myslinski of West Point.
2 See “Trouble in Hamtramck,” Time, XLI, 20 (May 17, 1943), pp. 22-23.
POLISH AMERICANS
141
ment agencies to determine the political attitudes of Polish Americans
toward the problem of Poland brought to light some extremely inter-
esting indications: nine out of ten Polish Americans believed that they
should do everything they could to help Poland; 41 per cent felt
that the United States should guarantee a fair territorial settlement for
Poland, “even if it meant fighting Russia”; only one third declared
that they would be satisfied with Poland’s prewar boundaries. The
majority were in favor of “Bigger Poland.”
The poll revealed, according to Andre Visson, that “American
Poles seem to have a sentimental rather than practical political ap-
proach to the problems of Poland, which they remember with a
certain nostalgia and which they do not want to forget even when
they are integrated into American national life.” ^ On May 29, 1944,
Americans of Polish descent organized the Polish-American Congress.
Its twofold purpose is to give expression to their “undivided service,
love, and attachment,” to the United States and to give their “full
support and aid to the Polish nation.”
The pro- and anti-Russian attitude split the Polish Americans during
1943 and 1944. The left flank — ^headed by the Polish-American
Communists, a very insignificant group, by the way — criticized the
Polish government for what they considered to be its too unyielding
attitude on the problem of Polish-Soviet boundaries. Then there was
a group of Polish-American intellectuals — ^mostly Socialists — ^headed
by Socialist Oscar Lange (former lecturer at Cracow University),
at the time professor of economics at Chicago University, which
favored the “Curzon line.” Early in November, 1943, another group
that urged agreement and collaboration with Soviet Russia appeared
in Detroit as the Kosciuszko League (the name emphasized its
solidarity with the Polish Kosciuszko Division fighting in the Soviet
Army).
At the same time, violent attacks against Sikorski’s government and
its policy of rapprochement with Russia were carried on by Colonel
Ignaci Matuszewski, one of the prominent figures in the Pilsudski
regime, who, after his arrival in America in the fall of 1941, started
animating the Polish-American press by his journalistic talents and
his supemationalistic ideology. He became the political writer of
Noivy Siviat, a Polish-language paper published in New York by
a wealthy prewar importer of Polish hams, Maximilian Wegrzynek,
3 Andre Visson, “Poland Enlists U. S. Tolonia’ in Border Disputes,” New York
Herald Tribune, January 9, 1944. See also Visson, “New Group of Poles in America
Seeks Better Russian Relations,” Zfod, January j6, 1944.
142
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
who, incidentally, also was a publisher of a supernationalistic Hun-
garian paper. In June, 1942, Wegrzynek founded the National Com-
mittee of Americans of Polish Descent; under its Polish abbreviation,
Knapp, it became well known and active. Its policy was to see pre-
war Poland restored and expanded at the expense of Germany and if
possible also of Russia. It wanted to retain Teschen, the Czech
territory Poland seized when Hitler dismembered Czechoslovakia.
Incidentally, Czech President Eduard Benes was considered by Knapp
as its enemy Number 2 — enemy Number i, of course, being
Stalin.
Acmlturation. In contrast to other immigrant groups, the Polish
American has been able to retain to an unusual degree the Polish
culture pattern within the American civilization. This is due to the
persistence with which the Polish immigrant clings to memories of his
nationahty, the strength of the Roman Catholic Church, the unselfish
w'ilhngness with which the Polish American supports his own insti-
tutions in America, the continued interest of the Polish government
displayed in its compatriots in America, and the activities of such
organizations as the Polish Roman Catholic Union Archives and
Museum and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America.
Contributions to American Life
The Poles have made their contributions to American culture in
three ways. First, it is quite obvious that the contributions made by
Poland to our civilization are an inseparable part of the intricate
and complex culture of America. Such great names as Nicholas
Copernicus, Paderewski, Sienkiewicz, Joseph Conrad, Helena Mod-
jeska, Marie Skolkowska-Curie, and numerous others are known to
ail, and are their contributions not only a part of Polish culture but
also of America’s culture? Is there a music lover in America who,
for instance, does not know the music of Chopin?
Second, the Polish American has impressed his personality on
American culture as a group. This fact is well expressed by
Thaddeus Hoinke: *
There is an item of the Polish contribution usually entirely over-
looked. . . . This is the cumulative contribution of the four million Poles
in this country. This human item is the greatest gift that Poland has
given America. Someone may remark that the American Poles, as a
class, have been mostly laborers and farmers. True enough. But they
* Thaddeus Hoinke, “The Polish Contribution to America,” pp. 74-75, in Poles in
America, Tomczak, Anthony C., Editor. Chicago, Polish Day Association, 1933.
POLISH AMERICANS
143
arrived in this country, like the Polish carpenters and pitch makers of
Virginia and the Polish soldiers of the Revolutionary time, at the crucial
moment in the development of the American Commonwealth— at the time
of laying the foundations of the new industrial empire. . . . This great
army of labor, in which the Poles play an important role, has won for
this nation the first place in the industrial life of the tvorld. Only by
means of their humble but indispensable qualities, because of their sweat
and titantic work, could this country achieve such an unprecedented level
of prosperity and might. And not only because of that— this great army
of peaceful fighters had actually paid with its own blood for the comfort
and higher standards of living in this country. In i9Z5, 10,537
died as a result of industrial accidents. . . . Much of this was Polish
blood.
In the third place, the Poles have furnished several outstanding,
even world-famous, names in the purely cultural field. In the opera,
the Poles are proud of Jean de Reszke, Adam Didur, and Ina Burskaya.
Carole Landis, a Hollywood star, born a Ridste, comes from one of
those large Polish families which has many widely scattered relatives.
The late Richard Boleslawski directed several outstanding Hollywood
films. Jan Kiepura, a young Polish tenor, appeared in 1935 opposite
Gladys Swarthout in “Give Us This Night,” a Paramount film, and
starred in “The Merry Widow” on Broadway in 1943-1944.
Leopold Stokowski, formerly with the Philadelphia Symphony Or-
chestra and engaged later in his fine experiment to acquaint the masses
with great music, is one of the greatest of America’s conductors.
Dr. Arthur Rodzinski is a conductor of long experience and famed
as “an orchestra builder and repairer.” ° In 1933, he developed the
Cleveland Orchestra into one of the Middle West’s two finest musical
organizations (the other, the Chicago Symphony). He was picked
by Arturo Toscanini in 1937 to organize and train the NBC Sym-
phony. In 1943 he became the new “boss” of the New York Phil-
harmonic Symphony. The son of a Pohsh army surgeon, he was
born in Spalato on the coast of Dalmatia. He studied law at the
University of Lwow. Severely wounded in World War I, he
resumed his law studies in Vienna and took his doctor’s degree,
which had no connection with music. Eventually he got a job at the
Warsaw Opera, where Leopold Stokowski met him in 1925 and
offered him an assistant conductorship in Philadelphia. The names
of Paderewski and Josef Hoffman are too familiar to be more than
noted.
s'Turged Philharmonic,” Time, XLII, 16 (October 18, 1943), p. 24.
144
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
The Poles have also made contributions to many other fields — in
painting and sculpture, in politics, and in the sciences of engineering,
medicine, and so on. Only a few can be mentioned. Professor F.
Pawlowski, head of the department of aeronautical engineering of
the University of Michigan, is a pioneer in aeronautical education.
Leopold Julian Beeck laid plans for the first polytechnic institution in
the United States and was a member of the faculties of the University
of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Oskar
Halecla, one of the greatest of Europe’s historians, now heads the
Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in New York City. Dr. Ralph
Modjeski, one of the best-known engineers in the United States, is
chairman of the Board of Engineers of the San Francisco-Oakland
bridge and served as consultant on the Manhattan bridge over the East
River, New York, and the Mid-Hudson bridge at Poughkeepsie; he
is the son of the famous Polish tragedienne, Madame Helena Modjeska,
who died in 1909. A monument to her was unveiled in 1935 in
Anaheim, California.
The late Bronislaw K. Malinowski, Bishop Museum visiting pro-
fessor of anthropology at Yale University (who died in 1942), was
recognized as one of the great social anthropologists of modem times.
He developed a new way of loolcing at primitive cultures. He came
to anthropology in the days when the greatest emphasis was centered
on recoring and classifying the peculiar antics of savage peoples
and attempting to reconstruct the evolutionary histories which would
lead back into a prehuman animal world, Malinowski was the first
to state the necessity of participating directly in the lives of savages;
it was his technique to observe a primitive people from within, through
its own language and the eyes and sentiments of its members. In his
numerous studies he became the founder of a new approach in that
field, now known as functionalism. This approach emphasized the
functional interrelationships of all cultural phenomena in the structure
of society. Dr. Joseph Jastrow, on the other hand, was a psychol-
ogist, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin for
thirty-nine years. Long a valiant tilter at man’s absurdities, he wrote
fourteen books and numerous articles, and from 1935 to 1938 lectured
regularly on the NBC network. Dr. Feliks Gross, a well-known
sociologist, founded the Central and Eastern European Institute dur-
ing World War II. Staff Sergeant Sylvester Frederick Dudex of
Philadelphia received the Virtuti Militari for heroism while gunner
on a Polish Wellington bomber.
CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS
145
D. CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
When the time came to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of the
Czechoslovak Republic on October 28, 1939, Prague was restlessly
silent under the watchful eyes of German police, while thousands of
Czech and Slovak Americans and their friends in the United States
were organizing again, as during the first World War, for the
restoration of this republic which had been established in 1 9 1 8. They
recalled that Professor Thomas Garigue Masaryk signed the Declara-
tion of Independence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia on October
18, 1918, in Washington, D. C., and that many had rallied around
the exiled diplomats who displayed the red, white, and blue ensign
of Czech sovereignty on the Legation in Washington, the Czecho-
slovak pavilion at the World’s Fair in New York in 1939-1940, and
numerous consulates. These citadels of independence survived when
the United States refused to recognize Germany’s protectorate.
Immigration
Contrary to the popular fiction that the Czechs are “new” immi-
grants, the Czech element has appeared in the American mosaic from
the start. Possibly the very &st naturalized American was the
Czech, Augustine Herrman, who reached New Amsterdam in 1633
and received “denization” in 1664. Sent to arbitrate a boundary dis-
pute between the Dutch colony and Maryland, he mapped Maryland
and Virginia with passable accuracy for the first time. Lord Balti-
more rewarded him with a 20,000-acre estate on Maryland’s Eastern
Shore peninsula, where he cut the first roads through “New Bohemia”
and gave his homeland’s name to Bohemia River. He has been
credited with introducing tobacco culture into northern Virginia.
His great grandson, Richard Bassett, was one of the signers of the
Constitution of the United States. The “merchant prince” Philipse
(Frederick Filip), whose manor house is now a museum in Yonkers
(New York), came from Bohemia. A descendant of his was the
pretty Mary, described in Cooper’s The Spy, who rejected George
W ashin gton to marry Captain Roger Morris. One of the Paca family
who, in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence for the state of
Maryland, is believed to have been of Bohemian descent.
After a seventeenth century edict banned all non-Catholics from
1^6 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
western Czech (Bohemian) lands/ Protestants migrated or perished
in numbers that reduced the population by three fourths. Among
the religious refugees were the Moravian Brothers (also known as
Herrnhuters), many of whom, together with the German converts
to the Moravian Church, reached America by way of Germany and
settled in Georgia, North Carolina, and in Pennsylvania. In Penn’s
colony they founded Bethlehem in 1714. Bethlehem, Nazareth, and
Lititz, in Pennsylvania, and Salem, in North CaroUna, were organized
in colonial times as exclusive Moravian villages, after the model of the
Moravian communities in Germany, England, and Holland. The
Moravian Seminary and College for Women at Bethlehem (Penn-
sylvania) , founded in 1 749, was the second girl’s boarding school in
the United States. “The Moravians were among the first groups in
the new world to become interested in Negro education and to make
a definite and concrete attempt to organize a Negro school and
develop a program of Negro education.” ^ Bohemian relics and
books still exist at Bethlehem, sermons dealing with John Hus and
Comenius are still preached there; and there is also an interesting
cemetery, where an Indian lies beside a white man — the first example
of the democracy of which the Americans are so proud. A Herm-
huter, Matthew Stack, a Moravian by birth, became an apostle to
the Eskimos in Greenland and labored among them from 1733 to
1772. It is also interesting to note that the last bishop of this United
Church, the famous John Amos Comenius (Komensky), who died
at Amsterdam in 1670, has exercised tremendous influence on Amer-
ican education. Like so many of his fellow countrymen, Comenius
was driven into exile in 1628 because of the vindictiveness of the
victors against the Czech people. He unfortunately did not accept
the invitation to become president of Harvard University. Never-
theless, he has gained a world- wide reputation through his educational
activities and writings directly, and indirectly by his influence on such
educators as Francke, Rousseau, and Pestalozzi. He is often referred
to as the father of modem education. Few Americans who attend
thousands of Masonic lodges in the United States know that Comenius
is the spiritual founder of modem Masonry, for his pacific ideas are
embodied in his work About the Betterment of Human Affairs, which
^The term Czech {Bohemian) is here used to include Moravians and Silesians.
The Carpatho-Ruthenians are dealt with in the section dealing with Ukrainian
Americans.
2 V. F. Calverton, The Awakening of America, p. iS 6 , New York: John Day
Company, 1939.
CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS
147
in 1717 served James Andersen when he compiled the statutes of Free-
masonry. In this work, Komensky invites humanity to unite in the
building of a new Solomon’s Temple as an abode of justice and love,
peace and progress.®
The first Slovak to visit America was, it is said, the king of
Madagascar.* For services rendered, the natives of Madagascar chose
a Slovak, Count Mauricius Augustus de Beniovsky, as king. He came
to Baltimore about 1785 to raise money and ammunition for a war
against the French, who opposed his claim to the throne. He re-
turned on the ship Intrepid to Madagascar and shortly afterward
was killed. A brother of Count Beniovsky served as an officer in
Washington’s army. Several Slovaks served in the Civil War.
Immigration
The bulk of the Czech and Slovak immigrants came on two waves
of the nineteenth century immigration. As refugees from Austrian
politics, the Czechs poured in for the two decades following 1848.
As sturdy farmers, they “homesteaded” free land in America’s expand-
ing west, as described by Willa Cather in My Antonia. In 1852 the
first Czechs settled in Chicago, now their American “capital.” Those
coming from Bohemia and western Moravia settled chiefly in the
northern states, but some from northeastern Bohemia and nearly all
from eastern Moravia went to Texas.
Near the end of the century came immigrants from Slovakia, mainly
for economic reasons. Finding most of the frontier land already
taken, they settled chiefly in the industrial eastern states among mines
and nulls to forge the steel sinews of America’s mechanized strength
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio. Their “capital” is Pitts-
burgh. Other centers are Cleveland, Chicago, New York, and
Detroit, but practically one half of the million Slovaks in America are
residents of Pennsylvania.
The Czechs usually brought with them their families, intending
to anchor here permanently. The Slovaks, on the contrary, usually
left their families in Slovalda and returned to them as soon as they
had made enough money to be considered rich in their home com-
munities. Their waves of immigration corresponded to the demands
® See: J. S. Roucek, “Freemasonry in Czechoslovakia,” The Builder y XV (February,
1939), pp. 45-48; (March, 1939), pp. 79-83; (April, 1939), pp. 111-114, 129; also “The
Pioneer and Founder of Modem Masonry, Jan Amos Komensky,” Square and Com--
pass (Denver), XXXVIII (December, 1929), pp. 28-38 ff., with documentary pictures.
^Slovak Committee, Foreign Language Information Service, Slovaks Under the
Stars and Stripes, p. 7. New York, 1930.
148 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
for labor in American markets. When muscles were needed, they
responded to the need for laborers; when the downward curves of
business cycles discouraged them, they packed their meager belongings
and filled the steerages of the ships heading for Europe. Eventually,
however, this seasonal migration was stopped, or radically limited,
when the new and stricter immigration laws of the United States were
put into effect.
Statistics concerning the number of Czech and Slovak immigrants
in America are uncertain. For example, many who were reported
as Slav, Slavic, Slavish, Slavonian — ^the 1910 census registered 35,195
such — ^should have been credited to Slovaks. Many were registered
on their arrival as Germans, Austrians, or Hungarians. The census
of 1930 states that there were 491,638 foreign-born Czechoslovaks
and that the native bom of Czechoslovak parentage was 890,441.
Therefore, the official total was 1,382,079, although the most reliable
estimates are that there are some 1,750,000 Czechs and Slovaks and
their descendants in America. During the decade 1931-1940, 14,393
Czechoslovaks were admitted, the number being exceeded only by
Germans, Italians, and Poles. One fifth of the Czechs hve in the
cities of Chicago, New York, and Cleveland. Chicago’s Mayor
Cermak, like a score of other mayors of his time, was a Czech; a plaque
on his birthplace in Kladno (near Prague) bears his last words, “I’m
glad it was me instead of you,” spoken as he lay dying of wounds
an assassin intended for President Roosevelt.
The states with the highest Czech and Slovak population are, in
order, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Wisconsin, Nebraska,
and Texas. • Czech Americans have constituted one fourth of the
population of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; one seventh of Cleveland; one
eighth of Gary, Indiana, and of Omaha. In general, Slovaks are
massed in industrial states and Czechs predominate in farming states,
and both are grouped in the same urban centers — Chicago, Cleveland,
and New York. As farmers, the Czechs outnumber all other Slavs
and are found principally in Nebraska, Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Oklahoma.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Organizations. The Czech and Slovak fraternal organizations play
a very important part of the immigrant culture pattern. Not only
have they provided financial assistance in times of death, stress, and
sickness, but they have also appropriated considerable amounts for
specific movements in our national life, business undertakings, peri-
CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS
149
odicals, libraries, and schools. Their numbers constantly vary, as
some are formed within each decade and some, again, disappear or
fuse with others. In 1933 there were, for example, eighteen fraternal
organizations of the Czechs in America — ^ten Catholic and eight “Free-
thinking.” The Slovaks are represented by some forty fraternal
organizations, mostly religious, whose membership is limited to Roman
or Greek Catholics or Protestants; only five or six are of “national”
character, accepting members from various Christian denominations;
some are purely local. Several American fraternities permit the use
of the Czech or Slovak language in their lodges, among them the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Knights
of Columbus, Catholic Knights of America, Eastern Star, Masons
(as the Klub Bobrovsky, Bohemian Masonic Club of Chicago).
The first Czech benevolent and educational society, called the
First Czecho-Slavonian Society in America, was organized in 1850,
with headquarters at 14 City Hall Place, on the site of the present
municipal building in New York City. It disbanded a year or two
later. The second fraternal society, best known under the abbrevi-
ated letters CSPS (the Czecho-Slovak Protective Society), founded
three years later in St. Louis, Missouri, has survived until today as a
nonsectarian and liberal organization, although it has merged (after
its existence of seventy-nine years), with four other similar, though
smaller, brotherhoods, under the name of the Czechoslovak Societies
of America (CSA).
Peter V. Rovnianek organized, in 1890, the first Slovak fraternal
organization in America, the National Slovak Society of the United
States. It has become the model for all other Slovak organizations,
as well as for those of the Ruthenians and Yugoslavs, and proudly
affirms that it was first among all foreign societies of the United States
to adopt a paragraph in its bylaws to the effect that every person
who has been a member for six years must become an American
citizen. It counts altogether some 50,000 members and represents the
more liberal sections of the Slovak immigrants.
The Catholic Slovak organizations, especially the First Slovak
Roman Catholic Union (Jednota), with some 100,000 members, has
given birth to many religious schools, literary and dramatic societies,
sports clubs, and the like. The Slovak organizations number nearly
300,000 members, adults and children, males and females, in thousands
of subordinate units of assemblies, and command assets totaling forty
milli on dollars. In fact, every third American Slovak is a member of
one or more branches of such organizations. The Protestants are
ISO
‘‘NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
grouped around the Evangelical Union of Pittsburgh, the Independent
National Slovak Society of New York, the Slovak Calvinistic Presby-
terian Union of Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania, and other such organiza-
tions. It is of interest that the Czech Protestants have no fraternal
organizations such as the Slovaks.
Conmmnal life. The impact of the process of “Americanization”
has been the least elfective among the Czech Americans of Texas,
where many of them, although of the third American-born generation,
can still speak Czech. A careful picture of this situation has been
provided by Dr. Henry R. Maresh: ®
There are approximately 300,000 Czechs in Texas; first, second, and
third generations, perhaps equally divided, from Bohemia and Moravia,
and less than one per cent from Slovakia. About seventy per cent are
Catholics, twenty-five per cent Protestants, and the rest Liberals or Free-
thinkers. There are 252 Czech communities, a community designated as
such has a local lodge of some benevolent organization, or a parish, or
a church. In these communities there are loi Catholic churches; 20
churches and 41 congregations and missions of the Evangelical Unity of
the Czech Moravian Brethren. The Southwest Bohemian Presbytery has
9 churches and 4 other congregations. The Freethinkers have a state
charter; the supreme lodge is in Houston and there are four other local
lodges. There are several benevolent, insurance and protective organ-
izations. The largest is the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of
Texas (SPJST), with 162 local lodges. Then there are the Catholic
Union of Texas Women (KJZT), the Catholic Union of Texas (KJT),
The Catholic Worker, The Society of St. Isidor, The Fraternal Union of
the Czech-Moravian Brothers and the Slav Mutual Insurance Society.
The Czech newspapers are: Texan, Svoboda, Novy Do^nov, Nasinec,
Czechoslovak, Vhtmk, Texasky Rolntk, Bratrske Listy, and Husita.
We have in Texas an enormous number of Czechs who are highly
respected in the state. In the Old Country these people belonged to the
middle-class and most of them were land-owners and they still are land-
owners here. They came here in the decades beginning with 1 850, to and
including 1900. They left their land of birth primarily on account of
religious and political oppression. From these immigrants we have a vast
number of native born, first, second and third generations. Texas was
then and still is essentially a rural country, distances are great and people
live far apart. These people were neither colonizers nor adventurers.
Their code was based on the principle of tending to your business and
letting the other man tend to his. However, if one of them was convinced
that he was in the right, he would defend his conviction or else die fight-
5 An extract from material prepared for the forthcoming Ready Handbook of
Texas, Texas State Historical Association, 2 vols. See also E. Hudson and H. R.
Maresh, Czech Pioneers of the Southwest, Dallas, Texas, Southwest Press, 1934. R. T.
Kutak, The Story of a Bohemian- American Village, Louisville, Kentucky, 1933, is
a good study of social persistence and change in a Czech settlement in Nebraska.
CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS 15 1
ing for the principle. Thus we may say that as these people were made
of suitable material and were planted in the right kind of soil, they
became typical Texans.
With the exception of the Bibles and prayer books, and of these they
brought plenty, they were cut off from all sources of information, current
events, as well as all facilities of education. In seeking freedom, they came
to a free country, but a country totally undeveloped. They were un-
familiar with the language, nobody understood them and neither did they
understand anyone. Consequently, they had to learn their deeds by roots
from the pages of experience and history.
With no tangible means for enlightenment and defense, the natural
tendency was to grouping and isolation, and many of these people
changed their names to read as those of other nationalities. From these
isolated groups sprang the benevolent organizations. All the social devel-
opment was centered around and emanated from these organizations. In
one sense, this influence was profoundly beneficial, in that it tended to
preserve the inherent qualities of these people, namely, conservation of
soil, thrift, industry and stability~the essential qualities of any people who
help to build a state. It is estimated that ninety-five per cent are home-
owners. In another sense, this grouped isolation hindered initiative and
fostered educational dormancy. However, we know from experience
that it takes more than one generation to change the basic qualities of an
individual. This is evidenced by the native-born generations who are
noticeably drifting into the white collared and professional classes and
are unobtrusively interwoven with and are designated as Americans. This
entire group has maintained to the present day, a period of ninety years,
an economic and social order based upon the freedom of all individuals
to think, to work, and to express themselves as they desire—an order in
which each individual is free to improve his own circumstances through
his own efforts so long as he does not in so doing transgress the rules of
fair play or encroach upon similar rights of others. They are more con-
cerned that men shall be free than they are that men shall be equal. From'
a sociological standpoint, it is evident that these people received from, as
well as contributed to, the social and economic structure of democratic
Americanism.
Religion and education. Dr. Capek estimates that 50 per cent of
the Czechs in America have seceded from their old-country Catholic
faith. It cannot be inferred, however, that the Czechs are irreligious.
Hussitism, Protestant traditions, and the resentment against the
Austro-Hungarian oppression in which the church participated are
the underlying causes. When the more liberal-minded Czechs landed
here, they pagerly grasped the opportunity of giving up all pretensions
to Catholicism, for, while at home, their economic and social positions
were frequently based upon outward conformance. Upon their
arrival in America, these Czechs drifted into a kind of irreligion,
known as 'Tree Thought.” Today some 480,000 Czechs are Free-
152
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
thinkers, and the early fraternal organizations referred to above were
also the first freethinking organizations. When these Freethinkers
had difficulties with the Catholic clergy about their burials, they
founded in 1877 their famed Czech National Cemetery in Chicago
(Crawford Avenue), which covers 130 acres. The organization has
also become one of the main supporters of the cultural activities
of the Czechoslovak immigrants in America, donating during the
fifty years of its existence more than $120,000 to the Czech Free-
thinking schools and for other cultural and humanitarian purposes.
It also maintains a Czech orphanage in Chicago. The League of Free-
thinkers, founded in 1 907, unites the state committees and local organ-
izations. The Slovaks followed this inclination to markedly less
extent. Some 300,000 Slovaks are Catholic (with 180 churches),
57.000 Protestants (130 churches), 60,000 Greek Orthodox, and
160.000 “without confession.”
The Czech and Slovak educational agencies in America are divided
between freethinking and religious institutions. Most of the free-
thinking (“without confession”) schools (some eighty-eight Czech
and eight Slovak) are attended by pupils after their school hours in
public schools. The majority of Catholics, on the other hand, support
their own parochial schools. In either type of school the Czech or
Slovak language is a required subject.
Nevertheless, Catholicism still claims at least 50 per cent of the
American Czechs. There are some 120 Czech parishes, with 104
parochial schools, most of them located in Texas, Illinois, and Ohio.
The weekly, Friend of Children, published by the Czech Benedictines
in Chicago, is used in many of these schools. Some parishes have two-
year commercial schools of junior and senior high schools. Nearly
all Slovak schools belong to the CathoHcs; nearly 41,000 Slovak
Catholic children are attending 1 1 8 parochial schools, taught by Sisters
of the Order of Cyrillus and Methodius of Danville, Pennsylvania.
The Slovaks can also boast of three high schools, all founded since
1922: the Slovak Girls’ Academy, housed in a fine building in Dan-
ville, Pennsylvania; the Benedictine High School for Boys, Cleveland;
and the Girls’ Academy at Pittsburgh. The Czech Catholics sup-
port the St. Procopius College at Lisle, Illinois, administered by the
Czech Benedictines of Chicago, the only Czech College in America,
and three academies, one in Chicago, one in Omaha, and one in
Shiner, Texas. Especially successful have been the efforts of the
Chicago Catholics to teach the Czech language in three-hour weekly
lessons by radio. The Protestant churches also conduct their church
CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS 153
schools during the weekdays, or on Saturdays or Sundays, and in some
cases during the summer. The Slovak Lutherans can even boast of
their own day schools in Cleveland, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.
It is also of interest that the Czech language is taught, as a regular
subject, in two public high schools of Illinois (Chicago and Cicero),
as weU as in a number of Texas pubhc schools, by the pupils of
Professor E. Micek who has taught Czech and Czech literature in the
University of Texas for a number of years. The Council of Higher
Education of Chicago, founded in 1902, helps the students of Czecho-
slovak origin to finish their college and university studies by lending
them money without interest.
The Sokols. One of the finest adult education organizations, which
has been imitated and adopted by numerous other immigrant groups,
is the Sokol Gymnastic organization. Sokol (the falcon), according
to the interpretation of the leaders of the movement, is the bird which
by its swiftness and energy symbolizes the active, vigorous, strenuous
Spartan life — ^the ideal of Sokol societies. The falcon, flying high in
the free skies, is also the symbol of freedom, and every Sokol dreams
of the permanent national freedom of Czechoslovakia. This twofold
symbolism characterized its philosophical foundation in nationalism
and its practice — ^the development of physical grace and strength.
Annual conventions and public performances are held. The Czech
Gymnastic Union, founded in Chicago in 1878, has its branches in
nearly every Czech settlement in America, a number of which also
boast of their own Sokol houses. Recently, the Czech and Slovak
Unions have united to form the Sokol Gymnastic Federation of
America. The American Sokol is published monthly for all members.
In addition, there are Catholic Slovak Sokols, Catholic Czech Sokols,
Slovak and Czech “Orel” (Eagles), Workingmen’s Sokols, and one
communist Federation of Czechoslovak Workingmen’s Gymnastic
Unions. The influence of these organizations on the development of
the immigrant mentality and communal relations cannot be over-
estimated.
The press. The first Czech weekly publication in America was
issued in Racine, Wisconsin, in i860, and was followed later by the
first Slovak periodical, the Amerikansko-Slovenske Noviny (Arner-
ican-Slovak News), of Pittsburgh. In 1944, the Slovaks had four
daily papers and the Czechs six; some forty-four were weeklies or
semiweeklies, and some twenty, fortnightlies or monthlies. Two
thirds of them were published in Czech and the rest in Slovak, though
some printed articles in both Czech and Slovak
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
154
The Slovak press is concentrated in the East, with fourteen peri-
odicals, chiefly in Pennsylvania, while the Czech press flourishes
chiefly in the Middle W^est. Other publications, not included here,
are devoted to special causes or interests such as: agriculture, athletics,
collegiate life, education, religion, or fraternal societies. In general,
the Czech and Slovak press is split along religious and fraternal lines.
In the case of the Slovak press, however, this dividing line was com-
plicated by the opposition of some Slovak periodicals toward the
constitutional form of Czechoslovakia up to 193^’ subsequently
by their support of the “free” Slovakia under Germany, a matter
which really has nothing to do with conditions in America but repre-
sents a kind of activity characterizing many of our immigrants bur-
dened with a marked “inferiority complex” and anxious to overcome
it by trying to influence the course of politics in the “old country .’
Political divisions. The “autonomist” group of Slovak Americans
contributed, partly at least, to the downfall of Czechoslovakia by
their continued agitation and by their help to the Slovak Catholic
separatists who eventually turned to Hitler for the realization of
their aim of “complete” independence of Slovakia from Czecho-
slovakia. The agitation hinged on the Pittsburgh agreement, dating
back to 1918, when the first World War was already approaching its
end. The representatives of a number of American-Czech societies
met at Pittsburgh, June 30, together with the representatives of several
Slovak-American societies. They invited the chairman of the Czecho-
slovak National Council, Professor Thomas G. Masaryk, who was
then staying in the United States, to the meeting. The representa-
tives of A7nerican Czechs and Americcm Slovaks expressed their opin-
ion as to the structure of the future Czechoslovak state in a protocol,
known as “the Pittsburgh Agreement,” signed by Dr. Masaryk as a
political program. The Slovak autonomists of America and of
Czechoslovalaa, however, regarded the Pittsburgh agreement as a
constitutional act. This wing of American citizens considered itself
justified in its organized interference in the internal politics of Czecho-
slovakia. These divergent viewpoints on the current of European
politics are still much in evidence. The efforts of Czechoslovakia’s
president. Dr. Eduard Benes, to organize the American Czechs and
Slovaks during World War II (as did his predecessor. Professor
Masaryk, at the end of World War I) for the restoration of Czecho-
slovakia, was supported by the Czech National Alliance, the
Slovak National Alliance (mostly Protestants), and the National
Alliance of Czech Catholics. These organizations united in April,
CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS 155
1939, in the Czechoslovak National Council of America. The organ-
ization was ably administered by Joseph Martfnek and Vojta Benes,
but was bitterly opposed by a small but vociferous dyed-in-the-wool
group of “autonomists” fused in the Slovak League of Pittsburgh, and
dominated by Catholics and by its president, Josef Husek, who pre-
ferred, as they claimed, “Hitler to Benek” ®
Contributions to American Life
It is not enough to mention only the outstanding names of Czecho-
slovak Americans. It is important to remember that there are hun-
dreds of thousands of immigrants whose names will never be men-
tioned in print but who, like the “unlmown soldier,” deserve to have
monuments built to them. Is there a steel building in America built
without the direct or indirect help of a Czechoslovak worker, whose
sweat, brawn, skill, and manual labor — raw perhaps, but fresh, vital,
strong — ^have helped to build America? How many acres of land in
Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and other
states have the Czechs cleared and cultivated? How many of these
“hewers of wood and drawers of water” have sacrificed their bones
and lives m industrial accidents and thus helped to advance our civi-
lization? By their contributions these immigrants have proved their
right to a place in the sun by their tenacity and accomplishment.
After all, why should not the Czech be sane and strong, with tradi-
tions of learning and civil and rehgious freedom through five cen-
turies?
Indissolubly interconnected with their physical contributions are
those made in cultural fields. In some cases, the individual immigrants
have made their contributions by weaving various aspects of their
Czech and Slovak culture into the culture pattern of America. In
other cases, they have made their contributions as American citizens
and descendants of Czech and Slovak parents. This fact is very
important, as it demonstrates that their background was helpful to
them in their effort to rise in the social scale of America. The roster
of these distinguished individuals is the best proof of the falsity of the
arguments of the so-called “Nordic” theorists who proclaim that
only the northern peoples of Europe have been valuable and useful
to America.
Of the many Czechoslovak Americans who won renown in the
field of science, one of the most outstanding was the late Dr. AJes
8 The Czechoslovak National Council was supported in 1944 also by the Carpatho-
Russian Council of Cleveland under Jan Duirdc.
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
156
Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum,
Washington, D. C. His work in the fields of anthropology and
related sciences placed him in the front rank of the social and biolog-
ical scientists. He was honored in 1937 by the National Institute of
Immigrant Welfare for his significant contributions to American life.
The Czecho-Slovak strain in the United States racial symphony
has contributed drama, music, humor, and education, as well as hard
work. Antonin Dvorak’s famous symphony, “From the New
World,” and his “American Quartet,” show today’s concert-goers
and radio listeners what music yesterday’s grateful Czech could extract
from SpillviUe, Iowa. Mutt and Jeff packed chuckles into miles of
comic strips from the brain of a Czech immigrant’s artist son. Bud
Fisher. Everyone who whistles a tune from “Rose Marie” and other
scores of Rudolf Friml’s light operas and compositions pays tribute to
the Czech composer whose tuneful melodies are a part of our musical
heritage. Frederick Dvonch, Slovak-American violinist and com-
poser, is a member of the faculty of the New York College of Music.
Jaro S. Churain’s musical abilities make him one of Hollywood’s
pioneers in musical arrangements for motion picture musical “drops”
of Warner Brothers productions. Madame Jarmila Novotna, one of
the brightest stars of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, shone
also on Broadway in 1944 as the star of “Helen Goes to Troy.”
Rudolph Myzet has appeared in numberless Hollywood productions
since the early “twenties.” Vera Hruba Ralston was starred in such
productions as “The Lake Placid Serenade” by the Republic Pictures
Corporation in 1944. Frank Drdlik has been associated with Holly-
wood’s best productions as art director from the very beginning.
A Czech architect, Joseph Zvak, raised the Gothic pinnacles of St.
Patrick’s Cathedral above New York’s Fifth Avenue. Czech actors,
actresses, and ballerinas have had their day on Broadway and in Holly-
wood. Thelma Votipka was one of the most frequently featured
artists of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York in 1944.
Emil Kosa, Sr., and Emil Kosa, Jr., have been connected with the
art department of Fox Motion Picture Company and are outstanding
portrait artists in their own right. Fred Sersen’s experimentation in
“special effects” earned twice for him one of the most valuable prizes
of Hollywood — the famed “Oscar.” Miss Bozena Slabey, as a sing er
of folk songs, a concert violinist, and a lecturer on Czechoslovakia’s
peasant art, toured and lectured in all parts of the United States.
One of the best-known Czech sculptors is Albin Polasek, head of
the sculpture department of the Chicago Art Institute, whose creations
CZECHOSLOVAK AMERICANS
157
are scattered throughout the world and who produced four busts for
New York University’s Hall of Fame. Jan Matulka of New York
won one of the Pulitzer prizes as an artist-painter and has illustrated
collections of Czech fairy tales.
The list of prominent physicians, surgeons, and other professional
men is so long that it can hardly be touched on here. Dr. Henry R.
Maresh is one of the best physicans of Houston, Texas, as well as a
well-known historian. Dr. Edward E. Novak, of New Prague,
Minnesota, is also a member of the Board of Regents of the University
of Minnesota. F. G. Novy discovered preventive compounds for
cholera and typhoid fever.
The Czech- American public was surprised to learn from Life in 1938
that Admiral Claude G. Bloch of the United States Navy is of Czech
parentage. Franz Werfel, considered one of the greatest German
writers and the author of such books as The Song of Bernadette,
though a German by adoption, was born in Czechoslovakia and prefers
today to be known as a Czech.
Dr. Robert J. Kemer, professor of modern history in the University
of California, has published numerous studies in the field of Slav
history. At the same institution, Boyd A. Rakestraw, associate direc-
tor of the Extension Division, has promoted all ramifications of public
adult education throughout the state. Dean Charles Pergler of the
National University, Washington, D. C., was a prominent figure in
the movement for Czechoslovakia’s independence during World
War I. F. E. Hanzlik is dean of the Teachers College, University of
Nebraska. In Illinois, Otto Kemer, former attorney general of the
state of Illin ois, in November, 1933, had the distinction of being the
first American Czech appointed to the federal judgeship.
Adolph J. Sabath has been a member of Congress since 1907. Roy
A. Vitousek was the speaker of the territorial house of representatives
of the Hawaiian Islands. Charles Henry Chemosky was county
judge of Fort Bend County (Texas) from 1916-1920 and has done
remarkable work as president of the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the
state of Texas.
Joseph Bulova, a Czech watchmaker, is known to every radio
listener as president of the Bulova Watch Company. The largest
independent manufacturer of cigars in the world is a Slovak, Morton
Edwin, of New York. F. J. Vlcheck, starting from “nowhere,” built
up the Vlcheck Tool Company of Oeveland.
Several Czechs head the hierarchy of the Catholic Church —
Monsignpr Reverend Oldrich Zlamal of Cleveland; J. B. Dudek,
158 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
Chancellor of the Diocese of Oklahoma and Knight Commander of
the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (also author of numerous articles
on Slavic philology) ; the Right Reverend Louis B. Kucera, Bishop of
Lincoln (Nebraska), and others.
Many names of towns in the farming states will testify forever that
the Czech pioneers founded them: Moravia, Protivin, Pilsen, Tabor,
Varina (Iowa) ; Hostyn, New Tabor, Pilsen, Palacky, Voda (Kansas) ;
Kalin, Libuse (Louisiana); Beroun, Homolka, Komensky, Moravia,
New Prague, Tabor (Minnesota) ; Jelen, Loucky, Prague, Slovania,
Butka (Nebraska); Malin (Oregon); Jolub, Kovar, Novohrad,
Zizkov, Moravia, Pisek, Vysehrad (Texas) ; Krok, Marek, Melnik,
Mount Tabor (Wisconsin); and others. The Slovaks founded
Slovaktown (Arkansas) and Slavia and Masaryktown (Florida) .
E. YUGOSLAV AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
Claims are frequently advanced that among the crew on Columbus’s
caravels were some sailors from the Yugoslav Dalmatian coast. Al-
though facts to prove the claims are wanting, not so are hopes that the
rich library of Dubrovnik might some day yield the substantiating
facts. One of the sailors returned, according to tradition, having
acquired a large fortune in gold and treasure. He built the palace
known from the name of its later owners as the palace of Bonda in
Dubrovnik.’^
It can be conjectured from the single word Croatan, found on a tree
at the site of Virginia’s “lost colony,” that a Croatian ship calling at this
first permanent settlement in America left its name engraved on the
tree, or even hurriedly salvaged the entire settlement from the destruc-
tion that was taking place. The ship apparently met destruction
later, as no trace was ever found of the colonists in question. What-
ever the facts, an island in the group off the coast of North Carolina
is called Croatan in deference to this historical name. This conjecture
constitutes the first recorded history linking America with Yugoslavs
or their Croatian branch.
Immigration
The first known mass movement of the Yugoslavs to America dates
back to the early eighteenth century. After the unsuccessful and
1 J. Bjankim, “Yugoslavs in the United States,” in A. W. Vanek and J. E. S. Vojan,
Eds., First All-Slavic Singing Festival Given by United Slavic Choral Societies^ pp.
95-99. - Chicago: National Printing and Publishing Company, 1934.
YUGOSLAV AMERICANS
159
bloody uprisings of the peasants in Croatia and Slovenia against their
feudal lords in 1573, and the Reformation movement, ruthlessly
crushed by the edict of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1598, many
Yugoslavs found refuge in Prussia, having gone there on the invitation
of ^ng Frederick William, who favored the Protestants. A century
later their descendants decided to find a haven in the new world.
During the first half of the eighteenth century they set their sails
toward America. One group, composed of 1,200 persons, went to
Georgia. There they settled on the right bank of the Savannah
River at the confluence of a small creek, which they named Ebenezer.
Pastors Gronau and Bolcius led the group. These early immigrants
introduced the cultivation of the silkworm in Georgia, an industry
engaged in by many in their original native land before they moved
to Prussia. Soon after the Civil War the settlement was abandoned,
and only the cemetery remains as a monument to this once thriving
colony of the first Yugoslav settlers in America.
Dalmatian sailors were world renowned for their seamanship, cour-
age, and love of adventure. Long before the discovery of America,
their ships navigated all the knotyn sea routes. It is recorded that a
Dalmatian ship sailed to America by way of India at the beginning
of the eighteenth century, and we know that Dalmatians were old-
timers in California when the first Yankees got there. A vessel from
Dubrovnik entered New York harbor around 1790 shortly before the
subjugation of the Old RepubHc.
A port of call for most of the Yugoslavs sailing to the new world
was New Orleans. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, this
was their chief settlement in America. There they engaged in the
oyster industry, controlling it for many a decade. Thence they
wandered throughout the length and breadth of the country. When
gold was discovered in California, they joined the famous gold rush.
Most of the Yugoslav forty-niners set out from New Orleans. They
advised their relatives and friends in the old country of the fortunes
made in the “shiny metal,” with the result that several ships sailed
from their native shores carrying new prospectors to the Golden
Gates. California has always had a special attraction for Dalmatian
imm i gr ants; climatically and topographically it reminds them strongly
of their own lovely Adriatic coastland.
Pioneers in California. Yugoslav immigrants are reco^zed today
as the pioneers in apple, grape, and fishing industries in California
and along the whole Pacific coast. It is recorded that one “Mark
Rabasa, apple dealer,” a native of Dalmatia in Yugoslavia, was the
first man engaged in the apple business in Watsonville, Pajaro Valley,
Ido “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
in the 1870’s. This date marks the beginning of this universally
known industry. Jack London, in his novel The V alley of the Moon,
describes at length and with great admiration the result of the “tender-
ness and love” that transformed the 12,000 acres of the Pajaro
Valley into “one of the most wonderful demonstrations of the United
States.” He calls the valley “New Dalmatia” and credits “those first
rugged Adriatic Slavs” for making it “Apple Paradise.”
Missionaries . Meanwhile, other Yugoslav immigrants appeared in
other parts of the United States. A Croatian Jesuit, Baron Ivan Tara),
died in New Mexico in 1640, while a missionary among the Indians
there. Many others followed, most noted among them being Ferdi-
nand Konscak, who came to Mexico in 1730, and is better known
under the Spanish adaptation of his name as Gonzales. Many years
of his pioneering work brought him to California, the result being
the first known geographical map of lower California. Joseph
Kundek, another prominent Croatian missionary, arrived in 1838; he
was active in the Middle West and founded there several cities, among
which are Ferdinand and Jasper in the state of Indiana. About this
time Slovene missionaries were concentrating their work chiefly in
the Northwest. In 1830, first among them arrived Frederick Baraga,
who devoted his whole life to missionary work among the Indians in
northern Michigan and Wisconsin as well as in eastern Minnesota. In
1853 he was consecrated a bishop of the newly founded Marquette
Diocese. The state of Minnesota, in honoring him, named one of
its counties after him.
The Slovene followers of Baraga were many and of no minor moral
and cultural caliber, as not less than four of them achieved the high
honor of becoming bishops (Ignatius Mrak, Ivan Vertin, Jacob
Trobec, and Ivan Stariha).
Mass immigration. As already noted, the first mass immigration
of Yugoslavs was impelled by rehgious motives. Another stream of
immigrants started to flow to the shores of America after 1890.
Serbia proper contributed very few, which was true also of Macedonia
and Montenegro. The bulk came from the provinces formerly be-
longing to Austria-Hungary.
Occupations. These Yugoslavs found employment in heavy in-
dustries in the liast and Middle West, although a majority of them
had been agriculturists in their homeland. Gradually some of them
changed to various trades; but the majority are still working in mines,
steel industries, iron works, and quarries. They are masons, long-
shoremen, and lumbermen. Only some Slovenes, located in the
YUGOSLAV AMERICANS
r6i
Northwest, chose farming as their occupation. The “old” immi-
grants, on the other hand, still raise apples and grapes and are inter-
ested in fishing. Large fleets of fishing boats in San Pedro, in
Monterey, and on the Columbia River alone represent an investment
of several millions of dollars and are the property of these immigrants.
The largest sardine, tuna, and mackerel cannery in California belongs
to the Yugoslavs. Most famous restaurants in San Francisco, until
recently, were owned and operated by them.
Numbers. According to Yugoslav authorities, there were in 1 944
not less than 700,000 Yugoslavs in the United States who were either
bom in Yugoslavia or were of the second generation. The figure
reaches 1,000,000 if we add the third generation, the original immi-
grants accounting for somewhat less than one third of this total.
Of this total, again, the Croatians number about 500,000, or some-
what more; the Slovenes about 300,000 or somewhat less; and the
Serbs the remaining 200,000. They settled in almost every state in
the Union, but chiefly in Illinois, Minnesota, California, Nebraska,
Iowa, and Colorado.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Religious divisions. Because of religious differences — ^the Croats
and Slovenes being Roman Catholics, the Serbs, Eastern Orthodox —
and of slight differences in the spoken language — ^the Serbo-Croatian
being slightly, different from the Slovene — ^as well as to an intense
tribal consciousness, each of the subdivisions of Yugoslavs leads its
own independent social and cultural existence. The Roman Catho-
lics, under the jurisdiction of their respective bishops, were separated
early into Croatian and Slovene groups. The remaining parishes are
not many. The Serbian Orthodox Church was under the jurisdiction
of the Russian bishops in America until after World War I, when it
was organized as a separate diocese with a bishop of its own for the
United States and Canada, who was nominated by the Patriarch of
the same church in Belgrade. The see of the Serbian Orthodox
Bishop is Libertjwille, Illinois.
The first Yugoslav church was founded in Brockway, Minnesota,
in 1871, by Slovene farmers. At present there are about seventy
Roman Catholic and about thirty Serbian Orthodox parishes and
churches, maintamed by Yugoslavs, in America. The Slovene group,
with about forty-five churches, has invested in them and the attached
homes for sisters, priests, and schools an estimated amount .of $3,500,-
000, There are also two Roman Catholic churches of the Greek Rite,
I 62
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
the rites being as in the Orthodox Church, the language used being the
Old Slavonic instead of the Latin, and, under certain circumstances,
the priests being allowed to marry. The faith and the tenets are
exactly Roman Catholic and the supreme head is the Pope in Rome.
All these churches are centers of the life of the respective group in
the settlement.
This fact can be exemplified by the New York settlement.^ Here
Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes “have sharply defined cultures.” Croats
and Slovenes are generally Roman Catholic. The Serbs, few in num-
ber and without a church of their own as have both Croats and
Slovenes, attend the Russian Orthodox Church, where services are
conducted in the ancient Slavonic church language. The Slovenes
also have an auditorium. A Croatian school is affiliated with the
church on West Fiftieth Street, and others are supported by New
York Yogoslav societies, which number more than a hundred and
sponsor cultural, political, and mutual aid programs. The holiday
most widely observed by Yugoslavs is celebrated on December i,
anniversary of the formation in 1918 of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes. The feast of Saints Cyrillus and Methodius, who con-
verted the Slavs to Christianity in the ninth century and translated the
Scriptures into Slavic, is observed on June 7 by Yugoslavs of both
Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox faith. Four Yugoslav news-
papers are pubhshed in New York: Svijet, Croatian daily; Glas
NarodUf Slovenian daily; Srbski Dnevnik, Serbian daily; Hrvatski List,
Croatian newspaper issued three times a week.
Educational activities of various nonsectarian types are many.
There are some thirty-eight fuU-time parochial schools in the United
States, half of them belonging to the Croatian and half to the Slovene
group. Instruction is entirely in English, but the national language
is an obligatory subject. Some 13,000 pupils are enrolled (8,000
Slovenes and 5,000 Croats). Only a few nonreligious schools or
courses for the teaching of Yugoslav exist; the best is in the Slovene
National Home of Cleveland.
Social life. Although New Orleans is the oldest existing Yugoslav
settlement in the United States, the first organization, however, was
formed in San Francisco, in 1857, as the Slavonian Mutual and Benev-
olent Society. Only in 1874 the New Orleans Yugoslavs organized
the United Slavonian Benevolent Association of New Orleans. The
first organization on the Atlantic coast was founded in New York
^Federal Writers’ Project, Neto York Tanorama, pp. 112-113. New York: Random
House, 1938.
YUGOSLAV AMERICANS 163
in 1 880 and is now known as the First Croatian Benefit Society. Two
years later the Slovenes organized their first association, the Inde-
pendent Society of St. Joseph, in Calumet, Michigan. Thus the first
four organizations were established in the four extreme points of the
United States. Today about 250,000 Yugoslavs are members in
fifteen various national fraternal and insurance organizations; about
80,000 of these are in the junior branches, composed chiefly of
American-born Yugoslavs. Several hundred independent benefit
organizations exist locally in the United States, which, with the 2,700
branches of the national organizations, bring the total up to nearly
3,000.
The Sokol and the literary publishing activities are backed by nearly
all of the fraternal and political organizations. The largest in number
are the singing societies, of which there are sixty-five, with two
federations, a Serbian and a Slovene. About fifty dramatic societies
and as many “Tamburica” orchestras are active. Physical culture is
mainly under the aegis of Sokol and Orlovi (Eagles) societies.
Nearly 200 National Homes are centers of activities in various centers.
Political divisions. During World War I, the Yugoslavs raUied
almost without exception under the banners of their leaders in a
remarkable fight for the freedom and union of Yugoslavia. Thou-
sands departed to join the Serbian Army, the Yugoslav volunteers, or
the American Army. But immediately after the war the masses
reverted to petty politics, a tendency that reached its climax even
before World War II. The Serbs, represented by the Serbian Na-
tional Federation of Pittsburgh, and the Slovenes were unwavering in
their support of free Yugoslavia. Split Croatian personality produced
such odd phenomena as the newspaper Zajednicar, official organ
of the powerful Croatian Fraternal Union; part was written in English,
and it promoted Yugoslav freedom and unity; the other part, edited
in Croat, felt surprisingly at ease apologizing for Axis Croatia.
A number of Croatian organizations, as the Hrvatski Domobran
(Croat Home Defense), with headquarters in Pittsburgh, strongly
favored Dr. Pavehch’s fascist government. Yet a substantial num-
ber of United States Croats were anxious to cooperate with Yugo-
slavia’s govemment-in-exile — a desire that was not fuUy recipro-
cated by the Serbs. Outraged by Pavelich, who aimed at extir-
pation of Serbs in Croatia, many Serbs insisted on collective Serb
responsibility and suggested excluding the Croats from Yugoslavia’s
resurrection. These lines of division were further intensified by the
activities of Louis Adamic, typified by his thesis in My Native Land
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
164
(1943) that the govemment-in-exile was represented by the reaction-
ary elements, unworthy of the cause of Yugoslavia represented by
Marshal Tito.
The pTess. The first Yugoslav publication in America, the
Slttvenska. Sloga, appeared in San Francisco in 1884 and was followed
by the Napredak of Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1891, and by the
Amerikanski Slovenec of Chicago in the same year. The latter is still
in existence, having combined with the local Edinost. Over 200
publications appeared among the Yugoslavs, lasting from a single issue
to forty-three years of existence. In 1 944 there were some forty-five
Yugoslav periodicals in the United States with circulations varying
from 1,000 to 60,000 copies. The Slovenes have to their credit
fifteen, the Serbs seven, and Croats the remainder. Of these, eight
are daihes and most of the rest are weeklies. English pages and sec-
tions are devoted to American-bom readers, and three are published
in English only. Most of the newspapers are either organs of political
organizations or movements, or organs of fraternal organizations, and
some of the fraternal organizations are also primarily grouped on a
political, religious, or socio-political basis. Various “Almanacs” are
a regular yearly feature of most of the newspapers. The press is
mostly occupied with European politics.
Contributions to American Life
The immigrant Yugoslavs have contributed in no small measure to
American progress, particularly in the fields of science, invention,
education, and literature. The late Dr. Mihailo Pupin of Columbia
University is well known for his inventions in long-distance telephony
and wireless telegraphy.® Nikola Tesla is the inventor of polyphase
induction motors and alternating power transmission system, devel-
oped by the Westinghouse Electric Company. Science accords to
him seventy-five original discoveries, and all electrical machinery
using or generating alternating current was made possible by him.*
Dr. Eduard Miloslavich, one of the foremost pathologists in the
United States, was formerly professor in Marquette University in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The late Dr. Henry Suzallo, who died m
1933, was one of the foremost educators in the United States, president
®See his autobiography. From Immigrant to Inventor, New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1927. Sec also A. E. S, Beard, *‘A Serbian- American Scientist —
Michael Pupin,” in Our Foreign Bom Citizem, pp. 283-289. New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell Company, 1939.
^See J. J. O’Neill, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla. New York: Ives
Washburn, 1944; Beard, “An Electrical Wizard — ^Nikola Tesla,” op. cit,, pp. 284-288^
YUGOSLAV AMERICANS
165
of the University of Washington from 1915 to 1926, and then
president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach-
ing, and a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.® Dr.
Vecld Victor of San Francisco is considered one of the outstanding
specialists on venereal diseases in the world of medical science. Frank
Jaeger, professor of agriculture in the University of St. Paul, Minne-
sota, has revolutionized the field of the honey industry with his con-
tributions.
Louis Adamic, born in Yugoslavia in 1 899, ran away from home at
the age of fourteen to come to America. Making a living as a sailor,
ditch digger, and factory hand, he spent his spare time in study.
After three years he had learned enough Enghsh to take a position
with a newspaper. During World War I he enlisted and saw serv-
ice with the American Army in France. Thereafter he turned to
writing, and has since become one of the most discussed literary artists
in America, In 1932 his Laughing in the Jungle won him a fellowship
from the Guggenheim Foundation that resulted in The Native’s
Return, a moving story of the peasant life and of the author’s impres-
sions of his country. My Native Land, published at the end of 1943,
created a series of international discussions with its stand on the con-
troversy between the forces moving Marshal Tito and General
Mikhailovich in occupied Yugoslavia. Another literary luminary of
Yugoslav origin is Stoyan Pribichevich, who was forced to leave
Yugoslavia in 1932 because of his activities against the dictatorial
government of King Alexander. He has written numerous articles
as a member of the editorial staff of Fortune. His World Without
End remains one of the most readable introductions to the background
of Balkan and central-eastern Europe.
Dr. Paul R. Radosavljevich, professor of experimental pedagogy
in New York University, is best known for his classic Who Are the
Slavs? (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1919), and his introduction to
Lay’s Experimental Education (New York; Prentice-Hall, 1936).
These names, however, do not exhaust the contributions of the
Yugoslavs to American culture. Prominent in the field of education
are: Professor Francis Preveden of the universities of Chicago, De
Paul, and now Minnesota, on philology; Professor Emil Weise, for-
merly of the Zagreb University, now of Loyola University, on
pathology and bacteriophage; Professor John Zvetina, Jr., of the
De Paul and Loyola universities, on history of law; Dr. Hugon
® According to the report of The New York Times, September 26, 1933, “his
father was a former sea captain of Czechoslovak birth,” — a mistaken assumption-
i66
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
Bren, professor of theology, formerly of Ljubljana and now with the
Slovene Theological Seminary of Lemont, 111 .; Professor Zivkovic of
Chicago University; Professor Krunic of the University of Cahfornia;
Professor Tomic, Dr. I. Altarac, and many others.
In the field of literature, Ivan Zorman, M. Sojat, Reverend
Alexander Urunkar, and Vinko Ujcic (pseudonym Georges) are
leading in poetry, and Dr. A. Biankini and Ivan Mladineo have con-
tributed to the knowledge of the American Yugoslavs and their
history. Francis A. Bogadsk, Dr. F. J. Kem, and the late George
Schubert were compilers of dictionaries.
In art, Harvey Gregory (Perusek, a Slovene) , Macanovic with his
yearly exhibits on the Pacific coast and in Chicago, Tanasko Milovic,
Mr. and Mrs. Gosar, and Vuk Vucinic, among the artist-painters of
Chicago, are well known. The world-famous Ivan Mestrovic has
contributed the two monumental Indian statues at the entrance of
Grant Park in Chicago.
As composer. Maestro Alexander Savine Djimic has obtained world
notice; as conductor, Arthur Rodzinski of the Cleveland Symphony
is prominent. The pioneer organization in presentation of chamber
music in America, the famous Kdieisel Quartet, had as its original
member the late Louis Svecenski, also a Yugoslav. In singing, the
famous Milka Temina of the Metropolitan Opera, at the beginning
of the century, created an unexcelled tradition in the rendition of
Wagnerian roles in America. Zinka Milanov, “Yugoslavia’s gift to
the Metropolitan Opera Company” in 1943, entered the ranks of
opera under the sponsorship of Arturo Toscanini; she is the wife of
Predrag Milanov, noted Yugoslav actor and director. In the modem
art of cinema, among several members of the actors’ guild we fin d
Laura La Plante (Laura Turk) and John Miljan, and Vorkapic, one
of the outstanding authorities on the technique of cinematography.
The father of the oil industry in Texas was Captain Anthony F.
Lucas, a native Yugoslav, who’ was the first to strike oil in that state.
World War II brought to America’s shores numerous other outstand-
ing individuals, particularly Dr. Bojiaar Stoyanovich, international
lawyer and diplomat, and Dr. Svetislav Sveta Petrovich, whose series
of short-wave broadcasts out of Boston took the country by the ears
just before Yugoslavia squirmed out of the Nazi net for a brief period
of time. A veteran journalist with a captain’s commission in the
Yugoslav Army, Dr. Petrovich has harangued his country from across
their borders ever since 1939. Dr. Nicholas Mirkovich, an economist
and sociologist, was on the faculty of the University of California,
BULGARIAN AMERICANS 167
and another Yugoslav sociologist, Dr. Dinko Tomasic, was a member
of the staff of several American colleges and universities; both have
published sociological studies in leading American periodicals.
Dr. John Slavic was mayor of Cleveland in 1942. The first Gold
Star mother of World War II was Mrs. Jennie Dobnikar of Cleveland
(1941), a Slovenian American, whose son died in action aboard the
destroyer Kearny.^
F. BULGARIAN AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
The Bulgarians, who are of Asiatic origin and came from the
region of the Azov Sea, succeeded in estabhshing themselves in Moesia
(present northern Bulgaria) in the second half of the seventh century.
They found many Slav tribes there and combined them in one
powerful political unit. In the course of time, however, they were
themselves assimilated by the Slavs; but although they adopted the
Slav language and customs, the country and the people took the
name of the Bulgarians. Thus, the Bulgars consist ethnically of
mixed European and Asiatic elements. Many of them have set-
tled in Macedonia, now divided among Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and
Greece.
The nationahty of the Macedonian population is the subject of
endless disputes and has a definite relationship to the problems agitat-
ing American Bulgarians. The name “Macedonia,” when we are not
speaking of the time of Alexander the Great, came into use about the
middle of the nineteenth century, when the Balkan nations were
engaged in their struggle for hberation from Turkish rule, and more
particularly since 1903. European Turkey was officially divided
into “vilayets,” and the territory now currently understood under the
term of Macedonia comprised the vilayets of Kossovo, Monastir
(Bitolia), and Salonica. Not only the territory but also the nation-
ality of the Macedonian population is disputed. The nationality of
the Slav of Macedonia can be determined on the basis of language,
domestic customs, religion, or existing national sentiment.^ The
matter is compHcated by the fact that the racial traits and the dialect
of the Macedonian Slav resemble those of the Bulgars as well as of
«See Life, XI, No. 19 (November 10, 1941), p. 38.
1 J. S. Roucek, The Foliiics of the Balkctm, Chapter VIII, “Macedonians,” pp. 138-
151. New York: McGraw-HiD Book Company, 1939; Christ Anastasoif, The Tragic
Peninsula, pp. 25^-266. St. Louis, Mo.: Blackwell Wielandy Company, 1938.
i68 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
the Yugoslavs. The present chapter assumes that the Macedonians
are Bulgars.
Immigration
The beginning of the Bulgarian immigration to the United States
dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century. With the
foundation of a college in Philippopolis by the American (Congre-
gational) Board of Foreign Missions in i860, and the establishment
of Roberts College in Constantinople in 1863,^ a number of educated
Bulgars were induced, around 1875, to come to America to study,
usually as Protestant students. Many of these returned, however,
to their native country in 1878-1879, after the liberation of Bulgaria.
In considering the Bulgarian immigration situation, we must, how-
ever, bear in mind that the Bulgarian immigrants have originated
mainly from two separate Bulgarian regions. About 10 per cent of
these American Bulgarians came from the principality, later the king-
dom, of Bulgaria, and 90 per cent from the unredeemed province of
Macedonia.® The immediate cause was the Macedonian revolution of
1903 and the extensive massacres that accompanied its suppression in
that year. In fact, up to 1910, most of the Bulgarian immigrants
came from Macedonia. But before 1913 the Macedonian Bulgars
arrived in the United States as Turks, and after the division of Mace-
donia in 1913, as Greek, Yugoslav, or Bulgarian citizens.
The bulk of the Macedono-Bulgarian immigrants came from one
small district, the revolted Vilayet of Monastir of southwestern
Macedonia, where the fiercest fighting took place in 1903. Every
one of the stone villages there was wholly or partly demolished by
Turkish cannons. With the crushing of the rebellion, thousands of
refugees fled to Bulgaria and Serbia, and only a very few, if any,
dared to pass through Greece on their way to the United States,
since the Greeks had actively assisted the Turks to crush the insurrec-
tion. The exodus was encouraged not only by the letters of the first
refugees, but also by the revolutionary Macedonian leaders (other-
wise opposed to any emigration), who liked to have somebody speak
for them in America, and who expected help from those proposing
2R. H. Markham, Meet Bulgaria, Chapter XIX, “American Uplifters,” pp. 357-
375. Published by the author, Sofia, 1931; C. Stephanove, The Bulgarians and Anglo*
Saxondom, Berne: Hapt, 1919.
3 There is little systematic literature on Bulgarian- American immigrants, with the
exception of the Reports of the Immigration Commission, 6ist Congress, 2nd session,
Senate Doc. #633, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911, Vol. I, “The
Bulgarians at Home,” pp. 47-48, and passim.
BULGARIAN AMERICANS
169
to go there. Almost all the villages were depopulated; the women
were left under the care and protection of the elderly men who
remained.
The news from America spread soon to Bulgaria proper and then
to Eastern Rumelia, and other emigrants followed. The district
about Tirnovo had long been overpopulated, and emigration began
across the Danube into Rumania, where the Bulgarians first came into
contact with Macedonian refugees and were incited by them to leave
for America. In addition to the economic reasons, the continued
persecution by the Greek Church and the closing of Greece as a
market for Macedonian labor also had their effect.*
The continued Macedonian troubles and the unsatisfactory local
conditions were bringing in new immigrants. The Balkan Wars of
1912-1913 produced another wave. On the other hand, when the
war broke out in 1 9 1 2 in the Balkans, thousands of Macedonian volun-
teers gathered in New York on their way to Macedonia, where they
joined the Macedonian Legion of the Bulgarian Army, hoping to
liberate their country. But as the Bucharest Treaty did not make
Macedonia free, a number of them, who found themselves now under
the new Greek and Serbian domination, again crossed the ocean.
To them must be added some hundreds who had entered and were
to enter this country illegally, not only from these regions, but also
from Bessarabia, Dobrudja, Banat, and Thrace.
Not so many returned home, however, when World War I broke
out. Only several hundred sailed to join Bulgaria’s colors. Those
who remained, and especially those who had not become citizens,
did not fare well in America. Their continued opposition to Serbian
and Greek rule in Macedonia was looked upon with distrust, and the
Greek and Serbian colonies also conducted their campaigns against
them. In 1918, a large Macedonian conference was held in Chicago,
and resolutions were passed in favor of the liberty of Macedonia.
In 1918 there were only a few Bulgarian colonies in America, and
most of these were in central and eastern states and in Ontario
4 This complicated question is intimately connected with the whole nationalistic
problem of the Balkans under Turkey. At first the Bulgarians maintained autonomy
of their national church under the Turks; in the eighteenth century, however, they
were made subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople— -a Greek. The Turkish gov-
ernment granted autonomy again to the Bulgarian Church in 1870, and immediately
thereafter sought to create dissensions in the activities of the Greek and Bulgarian
churches in Macedonia, hoping thereby to weaken them. The Exarch of Bulgaria
claimed spiritual authority over all Bulgaria, including Macedonia. The Greek
clergy and consuls stimulated hostility among the followers of the Bulgarian
Exarchate and Greek Patriarchate,
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
170
(Canada). For the most part the people were unskilled laborers,
some 1 0,000 of them finding employment in building the railroad lines
to the west. But neither the Bulgarian nor the Macedonian came
here to stay. The Macedonians thought of the day when their
country would be free again; the Bulgarians centered their hopes on
returning to their huts and their families with some ready cash.
Total immigration to June 30, 1943, according to the report of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, was 66,006, of whom 61,813
arrived between 1901 and 1920. As implied above, these figures mean
httle, since emigration has been large, and since 1931 has exceeded
immigration. More important are the figures for mother tongue. In
1910 we had here 18,341 people who gave Bulgarian as their mother
tongue, 12,835 in 1920, and 66,009 in ig^o. These figures, from
every point of view, are inaccurate and too low. This can be ex-
plained by the fact that hundreds landed here illegally; others were
registered according to their passports, which might have been issued
by Serbia, Greece, Turkey, or Roumania, or according to their reli-
gion, which perhaps indicated that they belonged to the Greek group.
All in all, the Bulgarian authorities compute that the real number
of the Bulgarian Americans, including the Macedonians, immedi-
ately after World War I was about double the American official
figures.
The most reUable report is that 60,000 Bulgarians in both America
and Canada was a maximum figure at any time, and that the United
States today has more than 35,000 Bulgarians, including those bom
in Macedonia, Dobradja, and Thrace. In every case, these figures
include also the second generation, whether born in America or
abroad.
Distribution. The Bulgarian Americans today are chiefly found
in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, New York, and Illinois.
They tend to settle in the cities of over 100,000 (Detroit, Rochester,
Gary, Toledo, Akron, Cleveland, Columbus, and Chicago).
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Occupations. In general, according to their occupations, Bul-
garians are divided into four groups. Only about 500 of them are
farmers, especially around Sofia, New Mexico (where about a
dozen families are left), and in Utah, Texas, Michigan, Montana, and
Tulsa, Oklahoma. It must be noted that approximately 80 per cent
of the foreign-bora Bulgars, mostly laborers and unskilled workers,
lived in urban areas in 1940. A third group of the Macedonians are
BULGARIAN AMERICANS
171
small businessmen, owners of small and general stores. Although
nearly all Bulgars are manual workers, in proportion to their total
numbers they have an unusually large number in the fourth group,
namely physicians, journalists, engineers, and bank clerks.
Literacy. It is surprising to learn that in the question of literacy
the Bulgarians stand rather high, considering especially the back-
ground of the Macedonians, who had not had much chance for edu-
cation under the Turkish rule. Out of 9,325 Bulgars ten years
of age or over, 1,006 (10.8 per cent) were ilhterate in 1930.
In this respect, a higher rate of illiteracy is shown by the Poles,
Czechoslovaks, Yugoslavs, Russians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Albanians,
Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Armenians, Syrians, Turks, Mexicans,
and the immigrants from the Azores. This paradoxical phenomenon
is explained by the facUity with which the Bulgar, like the Russian,
can learn the alphabet of the English language, the efforts of
the Bulgar churches and preachers, and by the agitation of radical
organizations which used to give out printed literature in their
meetings.
Religion and education. More than 80 per cent of the people
of the kingdom of Bulgaria belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church,
headed by the Bulgarian Exarch. The Bulgarian people had to fight
for their national church not only under the Turks but also against
the opposition of the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople; hence it is
no wonder that the Bulgar is a strong follower of his faith, which he
identifies with his nationalism. However, the influence of the Amer-
ican environment has lessened the religious fervor of the Bulgarian
immigrant. The Macedonian Bulgars are far more faithful to the
Eastern Orthodox Church than are the Bulgarian Americans from
the kingdom of Bulgaria, and it is believed that at least three fourths
of the Bulgarian Americans are still “good believers.” Of interest is
the observation of a former Bulgarian religious leader that some 75
per cent of Bulgarian- American mothers are strong supporters of their
Bulgarian church and that the “bachelors are reckless.” The first
Eastern Orthodox Bulgarian Church, the Church of St. Cyrillus and
Methodius, was organized in 1909 in Granite City, Illinois. Since
then, churches have been bruit in Granite City, Illinois; Detroit,
Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Steelton, Pennsylvania; Madison,
Illinois; and Lorain, Ohio. In addition, congregations have been
organized at Akron, Youngstown, and Canton, Ohio; Duquesne,
Pennsylvania; Syracuse, New York; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and other
places.
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
171
With the exception of the Madison, Illinois, church, all these
churches are owned, controlled, and managed by Macedonians and
are closely affihated with the Macedonian Political Organization of
the United States and Canada. From 1922 until 1938, the churches
were administered by the Most Reverend Dr. K. Tsenolf, head of the
Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Mission in the United States and Canada,
who died November 21, 1938. In that year, the Bulgarian Holy
Synod created a bishopric for North and South America. Bishop
Audrey Velitchky was sent to administer the newly created diocese.
However, in appointing the bishop, the Holy Synod (and the present
Bulgarian government) did not reckon with the wishes and disposi-
tion of the American-Bulgarian church congregations, and the latter
refused to recognize him as their spiritual leader. Of the seven
Bulgarian churches in America, only two acknowledged Bishop
Velitchky as head. Some of the reasons for rejecting the bishop are
that the canon laws of the Bulgarian Holy Synod specifically pre-
scribe the methods of electing a bishop to a vacant or new diocese.
Audrey Vehtchky was not submitted as a candidate for election, and
was, therefore, “imposed” on the American Bulgarian church con-
gregations by the Holy Synod “under pressure by the present Bul-
garian regime.” Furthermore, the bishop is suspected by the Mace-
donian Bulgars “of being an agent of the present dictatorial govern-
ment, wishing to transplant among the Bulgarian immigrants the aims
of the Bulgarian regime,” and by a special resolution of the seven-
teenth annual convention of the Macedonian Pohtical Organization
held in Buffalo in 1938, Vehtchky was rejected as head of the Mace-
donian-Bulgarian churches of America.
A minority of the Bulgars are indifferent to rehgion, and the
“radicals” are opposed to it. From 5 to 10 per cent of these Bul-
garian Americans belong to the evangehcal churches, supported by
the American organizations. These Protestant groups are inter-
connected with the missionary work carried on by the American
missionaries in the Balkans. The first attempts to extend this work
among the Bulgarian Americans were made by P. D. Vassileff, who
started an evangehcal mission among them in Chicago under Methodist
auspices (the Tract Society) in the Methodist Church, Monroe Street,
Chicago, around 1905. He organized some fourteen or fifteen Bul-
garian famihes and eventuaUy had his group hire a house in which
they rented out rooms and lodgings, held school, and loaned books.
The same mission still carries on, although Mr. Vassileff now owns a
steamship agency in New York Qty. 1944, five Congregational,
BULGARIAN AMERICANS 173
Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist missions existed in the United
States: Granite City and Madison, Illinois; Chicago and St. Louis,
Missouri; and Battle Creek, Michigan; and three in Canada.
The tendency of American-bom youth to give up the cultural
background of their parents is quite strong. The Bulgarian Amer-
icans try to preserve their culture pattern by supporting evening
schools in Steelton, Pennsylvania; Granite City and Madison, Illinois;
Indianapolis, Indiana; Detroit and Battle Creek, Michigan; Toledo,
Cleveland, and Lorain, Ohio; Homestead and Johnstown, Pennsyl-
vania; and Lackawanna, New York. There is only one Bulgarian
church school — ^in Steelton, Pennsylvania.
The press. The mortality of the Bulgarian- American newspapers
is as high as among other immigrant groups. Up to 1927 twenty-
eight newspapers had been started, but only four kept up their pre-
carious existence. The Bulgars themselves explain this fact by the
economic crisis since 1930, the slackening of interest in reading in
Bulgarian, especially by the younger generation, the Bulgarian fac-
tionalism, and the growing apathy for the Bulgarian cause.
The first Bulgarian newspaper was the socialist biweekly Borba
(Fighting, Struggle), founded in Chicago in 1902, which expired a
year later. It is interesting to note that the editors of the present
four newspapers are all Macedonians. The Narodna Volya (feople’s
Will) is a communistic sheet appearing irregularly in Detroit. The
Robotnicheska Frosveta (Labor Education), a weekly since 1911 in
Madison, Ilhnois, is expounding the principles of the Socialist-Labor
group. The Naroden Glas (National Herald), published twice
weekly in Granite City, Ilhnois, has really no editorial poHcy, but
aims to unite all factions and discontented elements and is a forum
for personal letters of accusation, denunciation, and various expres-
sions. The Macedonian Tribune, a weekly pubfished at Indianapolis,
Indiana, is the official organ of the Macedonian Political Organization,
and as such surpasses by far the total number of the other three Bul-
garian papers in circulation and subscriptions.
Organizations. Only a few Bulgarian mutual benefit societies
exist, in such towns as Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York City, and
Chicago; but for social purposes, these immigrants have twenty-nine
societies. The groups from particular villages and districts form their
own organizations, named after their birthplaces in Bulgaria or
Macedonia; thus we hear of the Dumbeni Society or Kostur Society
of Madison, Ilhnois. In Homestead, Pennsylvania, where there is a
beautiful National Bulgarian Home, we find the Father Paisi Society
174
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
(named after the first herald of Bulgaria’s awakening), in addition
to others. There is no national organization that unites all local organ-
izations, although several attempts have been made in that direction.
These organizations gather from time to time for their national cele-
brations and social evenings (vecerinkas) , where they revive their na-
tional dances, sing their native songs, eat their native dishes (such as
paprikash, geuvetch, or piperki — ^potroast with vegetables) and renew
their boyhood acquaintances.
The Macedonian issue. Probably more than 70 per cent of the
Bulgarian Americans from the kingdom of Bulgaria do not get
excited about any cause, except their localistic interests in the Congre-
gational, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist missions in the United
States and Canada. The rest, and especially the quasi-intelligentsia,
are divided between the “radicals,” opposed to organized religion and
to the monarchical form of Bulgaria’s government and the various
factions of the proponents of the Macedonian cause. But the situa-
tion is somewhat different in regard to the Macedonian Bulgars, over
80 per cent of whom — as estimated by Mr. Anastasoff — are interested
in the Macedonian cause. Since 1935 there has been hardly a con-
vention of the Macedonian Pohtical Organization (M.P.O.) without
the attendance of from five to six thousand participants. The M.P.O.,
however, must be distinguished from the Macedonian Peoples’
League, an outright communistic organization, interested in the Mace-
donian problem only as a means to an end — that is, to spread com-
munist tenets among Macedonian Americans.
The Macedonian Political Organization was originated in 1922 at
Fort Wayne, Indiana, by a few of the existing Macedonian societies.
Other cities where the Macedonians have substantial colonies organ-
ized their locals and were admitted to the Union; it is registered under
the laws of the state of Indiana with a charter of July 6, 1925. In
1927, in Akron, Ohio, the Women’s Au xiliar y was established and
still later the Young Macedonians’ auxiharies appeared. During the
first three years, the headquarters of the M.P.O., which afiiliates
thirty-four local organizations in the United States and Canada, was
at Fort Wa3mie; since then it has been at Indianapolis. At the head
of this organization is a National Committee elected every year at
the annual convention, and a Research and Information Bureau main-
tained at 4060 West Pine Boulevard at St. Louis, Missouri. The aims
of the M.P.O. were at first “to work in a legal manner for the inde-
pendence of Macedonia, where all of the nationalities will have equal
rights and duties.” After 1931, especially after 1933, more and more
BULGARIAN AMERICANS
175
influence of the extremely nationalistic faction of Mihailoff was
apparent — Mihailoff, the leader of the deadly secret organization, the
IMRO (The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization),
which carried on its revolutionary activities in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia,
and Greece, as well as in other parts of Europe, before the Bulgarian
dictatorship, inaugurated on May 19, 1934, decided to take steps
against him. Mihailoff, convicted of several murders, escaped to
Turkey; he represents the wing of the Macedonians who believe that
they will achieve their aim by “means of arms, bombs, and so on,
because there is no peaceful means left in Macedonia under Servian
and Greek rule otherwise to accomplish its purpose.” ® At any rate,
the American Macedonians are sympathetic with the IMRO and con-
sider Mihailoff as the champion for Macedonian freedom and inde-
pendence. While in 193 3 the M.P.O. stiU claimed that “there is much
confusion in the minds of even well-informed Americans concerning
(our) Macedonian organizations” because “they are often falsely
identified with the illegal I.M.R.O.,” in 1934 the M.P.O. extolled the
IMRO as the “most powerful guardian of the Macedonian ideal and
undefeatable defendant of our oppressed country. Because of the
fact that the Macedonian people are deprived of all their human and
national rights, the IMRO is forced to use revolutionary (armed)
means — the only right which the governments of Belgrade and Athens
cannot usurp, namely, the readiness of the Macedonians to sacrifice
their lives for the salvation of their Fatherland. . . . The final goal
of the struggle of all Macedonians is the creation of a Free and Inde-
pendent State of Macedonia — which is now divided among Yugo-
slavia, Greece and Bulgaria.”
Bulgarians and World War 11 . The course taken by World War
II stunned the Bulgarian Americans, and particularly the Macedonians.
The latter, always hoping for the liberation of their country, saw its
occupation by the Bulgarian Army, headed by the king fighting on
the side of the Nazis. But the hopes of the leaders were raised again
by 1944 when the victory of the United Nations was in sight, and thus
also in sight the possibility that the principle of the “Four Freedoms”
might allow the formation of an independent Macedonia. The
chance, however, was only a slim one, for the granting of the inde-
pendence of Macedonia would automatically mean the denial of the
demands of the two allied nations — Greece and Yugoslavia.
^Anastasoff, op, cit,y p. 278. Let us recall diat a Macedonian, Vlade Georgieff
Tchernozemsky, wlio murdered King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles, was
a member of the IMR.O; see Roucek, op, cit,, p. 138.
176
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: SLAVIC STATES
Contributions to American Life
Although the Bulgarians are really the “late” arrivals in this country,
they can boast of a surprisingly large number of professional indi-
viduals, of whom only a few can be mentioned here. Dr. Radoslav
A. Tsanoff, a graduate from Roberts College, has been professor
of philosophy in Rice Institute, Houston, Texas, since 1914, and is
considered the most prominent Bulgarian-American intellectual. In
the same state lives Vangel K. Sugareff, professor of history in the A.
and M. College of Texas. George Dimitroff is in charge of the
Harvard Observatory. Professor Ivan Dosseff is a member of the
faculty of engineering of the University of Minnesota, while Professor
Popoff teaches chemistry in the University of Iowa. Stoyan
Christowe’s short stories and articles have appeared in leading Amer-
ican periodicals; he has also published several books of his reminis-
cences and of the Macedonian movement. Alexander Georgiev
invented the condenser used in radios and electric motors. R. S.
Gerganoff, a prominent architect, resides in Ypsdanti, Michigan.
Agop Agopoff, New York sculptor, has won several first prizes in
the American Academy of Design and is the creator of the Will
Rogers and Firdausi busts. Atans Katchamakoff, a Bulgarian sculp-
tor, collaborated in the preparation of Monica Shannon’s novel Dobry,
which was awarded the John Newberry Medal in 1935 “for the most
distinguished contribution to American literature for children in
1934.” Nor can we omit mentioning Victor Sharenkov, of the New
York Public Library, and Boris T. Majdrakov, noted art photographer
of New York City, Christ Anastasoff’s The Tragic Peninsula (St.
Louis, Mo.: Blackwell Wielandy Co., 1938), is the best presentation
of the Macedonian case, covering a history of the Macedonian move-
ment for independence since 1878. Peter Atseff, secretary of the
Macedonian Political Organization, is a well-known intellectual of
the movement. Peter Gruptcheff is a well-known figure in Holly-
wood circles as secretary to one of the pioneer directors and stars of
Hollywood, Paul Hurst. Assen Jordanoff, a former Bulgarian war
ace and “world’s foremost aviation authority,” long ago established
an outstanding reputation as an aeronautical engineer and for man y
years has been the consultant of prominent aircraft manufacturers and
airlines as technical advisor. He is the undisputed ace of aviation
writers. His books have been sensationally successful, have sold
hundreds of thousands of copies all over the world, and have been
bought in quantity by the United States government, the Canadian
BULGARIAN AMERICANS 177
R.A.F., the British R.A.F., the Austrahan R.A.F., and the Russian Air
Force. Often imitated, never equaled, these have become interna-
tional best-sellers: Flying and How to Do It (1932), Your Wings
(1937), Through the Overcast (1938), and the more recent Safety in
Flight, The Man Behind the Flight, Illustrated Aviation Dictionary
(pubhshed by Funk & Wagnalls Company and Harper and Brothers).
Our study would be incomplete without noting the war efforts and
patriotism of Macedonian Americans. The resolution of the Mace-
donian Political Organization of the United States and Canada,
adopted on September 2, 1941, endorsed the Atlantic Charter as the
basis of European settlement — an important step, considering that
the Bulgarians are officially at war with the United States. Attention
should be also directed to the determined war bonds purchase of the
Macedonian Pohtical Organization. For example, the M.P.O. main-
tained a qualified issuing agency with the Federal Reserve Bank of
St. Louis, and the Macedonian Tribune featured war bonds and war
savings stamps advertisements in every issue. By the end of 1944,
the value of war bonds bought by M.P.O. members had passed the
1 1,000,000 mark.
CHAPTER VII
''New'" Immigration: East European States
A. LATVIAN AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
L atvia is a young country politically, but the Latvians are by
no means a young nation; they have an interesting history and
traditions and a rich folklore of their own. They are neither Teuton
nor Slav. Their language, together with the Lithuanian, derives
directly from Sanskrit and is classified in the Balti branch of the Indo-
European family of tongues. After World War I, Latvia became one
of the new republics of the Baltic Sea, having seceded from Russia
already in 1917, after the Bolshevik overthrow. The Latvian Na-
tional Council was established in Walka on November 17, 1917, and
on November 18 the council proclaimed Latvia’s fuU self-determina-
tion and decided to elect a constituent assembly for the country.
It is important to note that the Latvian nation achieved its state-
hood as a result of a vigorous economic, cultural, and political develop-
ment in the nineteenth century, and for about two years after the
armistice had to struggle for its independence. The Latvians rebuilt
their country after World War I without outside help. It is also to be
noted that the Latvians achieved considerable progress, particularly
in the field of agriculture and inventions (for example, the smallest
candid camera in the world, the Minox), and that they are also good
seafarers and mechanics.
Immigration
It appears that the first Latvian came to America with the Swedes,
for in the seventeenth century Livonia was a province of Sweden.
At the end of the nineteenth century, more Latvian immigrants came
to the United States. This group belonged to the seamen who hap-
pened to land on the shores of this country and decided to stay. The
new world appealed to them with its wealth of new opportunities.
To some extent, the economic domination and exploitation of the
178
LATVIAN AMERICANS
179
Latvians by greedy German landed proprietors was another cause,
as well as political and religious restrictions by the Russians. The
Latvians were filled with a bitter hostility against the German-Baits,
who constituted an insignificant portion of the population and yet
were the foreign masters of their soil. They were also hostile to their
political rulers, the Russians, who sought to “Russify” them, especially
after the rule of Alexander III (1881-1894), whose government fol-
lowed the poHcy of “one Czar, one faith, one language, one law.”
The main stream of the Latvian immigrants came here, however,
after the Russo-Japanese War. Toward the close of 1905 a violent
revolution broke out in Riga, where a great industrial population had
recently sprung up. Spreading rapidly to the country districts, it
assumed, at least in part, the form of an anti-German war, directed
primarily against the German squires. On the other hand, interna-
tional socialism rather than Latvian nationalism was the strong factor
in the revolt. Latvian nationahsm could find its expression only in
socialism, which at that time was striving for liberation of oppressed
nationalities. The uprisings were put down, not without much blood-
shed and atrocities on both sides. A great many of the active Latvian
leaders — ^nationalists and socialists — ^were compelled to leave their
country. Some were accused, and justly so, of being revolutionists,
socialists, and radicals; others wanted to escape the military service
enforced by Russia.
It is hard to estimate the prewar figures of the Latvian immigrants.
Like the Ukrainians and others, they came here under the classifica-
tion of German, Russian, or Lithuanian. From the Latvian point of
view, the number now in the United States is possibly as high as
50,000.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Settlements. Contrary to the usual tendency of other American
immigrants, the Latvians did not tend to form large settlements,
although they became concentrated in certain states and cities.
Nearly 50 per cent of the total may be found in five cities: New
York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and 75 per cent
are in six states: New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Peimsylvania,
New Jersey, and California.
Occupations. Most of the Latvian immigrants were seamen, me-
chanics, peasants, laborers, and workers of the lower classes, although,
following the revolution of 1905, numerous educated Latvians joined
their ranks in America. In spite of the fanning background of a
i8o “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
majority of these immigrants, the Latvians showed no marked
tendency to follow that calling here. This tendency is shown by
the fact that out of 8,744 foreign-bom Latvians in 1930 oiily 672
lived on farms in rural areas, and 1,257 lived in small towns or vil-
lages below 2,500 population scattered throughout Massachusetts,
Maine, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The farming settlements that
exist are rapidly vanis hi ng. We find, for example, a small Latvian
community near Easton (in Bucks County), Pennsylvania, which
supports its Baptist congregation. We find another minor Latvian
farming setdement between Amsterdam and Albany, northwest of
Albany, New York, and still another in Wisconsin. The settlement
near Petersburg, Virginia, has only four or five Latvian families left.
For the most part, the Latvians in America are good mechanics,
piano makers (a profession that offers hardly any occupation at all
today), craftsmen (mostly carpenters), bricklayers, or iron workers.
Many Latvians have learned the painting trade here, and quite a num-
ber of them are superintendents of buildings and houses, tailors,
builders (contractors), and wood-workers. Again, contrary to the
experiences of most other immigrant groups of eastern Europe, there
are some foreign-bom Latvians in the professions, in addition to the
usual sprinlding of pastors, physicians, and surgeons, all of whom,
however, belong to the group of better-trained people who came here
following the revolution of 1905.
Another interesting characteristic of the Latvian immigrants is the
ease with which they tend to assimilate. It is true that they retain
to some extent their Latvian traditions and sentiments; but with the
exception of the radical faction, the Latvian Americans do not inter-
fere with or criticize the political conditions of their native country
so extensively as, for example, do the Czechoslovak or Yugoslav immi-
grants, whose attitude in some cases is extremely bitter and hostile.
The tendency favoring rapid assimilation is apparent from the official
United States figures pertaining to the American citizenship acquired
by the Latvians. In 1930 (the statistics for 1920 are intermixed with
those of Russia and Estonia), out of 20,673 foreign-bom Latvians,
12,590 (60.9 per cent) had been naturalized, 2,178 had their first
papers, 5,405 were aliens, and there were about 500 of whom nothing
was known. This rate of naturalization surpasses that of immigrant
groups from most of the eastern and southern European countries, as
well as of groups from Asia, and even from the Americas.
There are several explanations for this interesting characteristic.
As indicated, the Latvians more or less scatter and form no such large
LATVIAN AMERICANS
i8i
colonies as do the Czechoslovaks or Poles. As was pointed out, many
are of a high intellectual level and assimilate easily, especially in respect
to the English language. Furthermore, a considerable number of
them arrived here with liberal convictions and, as a matter of principle,
were international in their outlook.
Orgmizutions. The trend that favors rapid assimilation is also
reflected in the lack of national Latvian organizations. The American
National Latvian League of Boston is the only surviver of the na-
tional organization that originally had branches in New York, Chi-
cago, and Philadelphia; it was founded at the end of World War I
for the purpose of helping the cause of Latvia’s independence. It
was held together mainly because of the personality of Mr. Jacob
Sieberg of Boston, one of the most respected of Latvian immigrants.
The promotion of Latvian cultural background is also carried on by
the New York Latvian Society. There is also in New York the
Joint Latvian Committee of representatives of different Latvian organ-
izations, headed by J. Lenow. The Society of Free Latvians in Phila-
delphia is one of the oldest Latvian organizations in the United States,
as is also the Latvian Qub of Chicago, and the Latvian Mutual Aid
Society of Chicago. However, nearly all Latvian organizations
are mutual aid societies. The Latvian Educational Society of New
York represents the Latvian radicals who lean toward communism.
As a counterpart to the radicals in New York, there exists a Latvian
Organization of Christian Men.
Divisions. In general, in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and
Chicago, the Latvians usually divide themselves socially into four
groups. The radicals are imbued with socialist and communist no-
tions and resent the American “capitalistic ways”; they are com-
posed of moderates and extremists, who again are subdivided into
a wide variety of factions. They change their allegiances to their
“isms” from time to time, and as is usually the case with such immi-
grants, they are accustomed to stand always on the opposite side of
any established order. They also bitterly oppose the clergy. But
since the depression, they have been rapidly losing their membership
as well as financial support which, it is believed, came from inter-
national sources. The second group consists of purely social organ-
izations which meet infrequently for the purpose of renewing old
friendships and talking over old times. Third are the organizations
that cultivate background by means of lectures, theater performances,
musicales, and debates. The fourth and possibly the strongest group
consists of the religious organizations.
I §2 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
Latvians and World War 11 . After the absorption of Latvia by
Russia, the leadership of the independence movement was assumed
in America by Dr. Alfred Bilmanis, Latvian minister to the United
States, a member of the trio of Baltic ministers who retained their posts
in Washington. A “radical” faction, of minor numbers but of
noisy representatives, opposed his activities and favored the “Russi-
fication” (that is, the “Sovietization”) of Latvia.
Religion. The background of rehgious strife in their homeland
retains its influence on Latvian immigrants. The majority of Latvians
in America are Lutherans, although their organization is not so strong
as is that of the Baptists which started as a missionary movement in
Latvia, supported by American and British sources, about i860.
Among the Latvians there are also Catholics, Bohemian Brothers, and
a few Greek Orthodox.
Periodicals. In line with their tendency to assimilate quickly, the
Latvians in America can boast of but one Latvian newspaper, the
Amerikas Lataveetis {American Latvian). In Boston appears also a
monthly Latvian magazine Ausma (The Davm), published by the
Baptist pastor, J. Daugmanis. In New York appears the monthly
Drauga Vests (Friends Message), published by the Baptist pastor,
C. Purgailis. In the past, five other periodicals were published for
brief intervals, but all have gone out of existence because of lack of
support by their Latvian constituency.
There are no Latvian schools in America, although the Latvian
churches teach religion in the Latvian language, a process which,
however, is rather ineffective because of the rapid assimilation of
the American-born Latvians. In literacy, the Latvians r ank higher
than do most of the immigrants from the countries of central and
southern Europe. This, too, is because of their ready assimilation,
together with the selective character of their later immigration.
Contributions to American Life
In proportion to their numbers, the Latvians in America have
contributed their share to the upbuilding of America, not so much
in the field of culture, but rather in the field of honest work,
which was so needed during the period of economic expansion. It
is interesting, however, to note that a Latvian, Martins Bucins, of
Liepaja or Libau, was one of the first to be killed in the Civil War.
Among the leading American Latvians was Karlis Ulmanis, the last
president of Latvia, son of a Latvian farmer, who came to America
in 1907. During his five-year stay here, Ulmanis was employed in
LATVIAN AMERICANS
183
different agricultural and dairy establishments, studied at the State
University of Nebraska, and was offered the post of lecturer in agri-
culture. In 1913 the Russian Czarist government passed an act of
amnesty for all those implicated in the revolutionary movement in
1905, and Ulmanis was able to return to his country, which he helped
to liberate at the end of World War I. He proclaimed Latvia’s inde-
pendence on November 18, 1918, in Riga, as the first Latvian Prime
Minister. In 1934 he was commissioned by President A. Kviesis to
reform Latvia’s constitution on a basis of national unity and
cooperative economic equahty, and in 1938 he became president.
Alfred Kalnins, composer and organ virtuoso, studied in St. Peters-
burg and was known before World War I in Russia and in his
country as a composer, musician, and conductor for various singing
and other musical organizations. He came to America in 1927 and
served as organist at Christ’s Lutheran Church in New York City.
He returned to his native land in 1932. Kalnins is known as a com-
poser of several operas, among them “Banuta,” and “The Islanders.”
The Reverend John Kweetin, who conducts the Welfare Library
for the American Tract Society on Ellis Island; Dr. J. Eiman, a pathol-
ogist, director of the department of pathology at the Abington
Memorial Hospital, Pennsylvania; Mrs. Emily Podin of the Interna-
tional Y.W.C.A. of New York City, worked for the cause of Latvia’s
independence during World War I and were decorated .with the
Three-Star decoration by the Latvian government for their efforts,
as were J. Sieberg, pastor J. Graudin, pastor K. Selmer, pastor
K. Podin, J. Lenow, Charles Carol, and others. For prominent cul-
tural activities, decorations were also given to H. Lielnors, former presi-
dent of the Baltic-American Society, and the Baptist pastor, J. Daug-
man, in Boston. G. Danzis is a well-known social worker in New
York and was for years president of the Lutheran Parish Council.
Alexander Siemel, the son of a bootmaker at Liepaja, who started his
career in a Chicago department store selling women’s stockings, be-
came field director of an expedition to the wilds of Matto Grosso,
Brazil, and filmed the native and animal life of the comparatively
unknown jungles, with sound effects. Julian Duguid tells Siemel’s
life story in Green Hell and Tiger Man. Samuel Chugerman, bom
in Latvia, who is, according to his own statement, “what may truth-
fully be described as a slum product,” published in 1939 Lester F.
Ward, The American Aristotle, an illuminating introduction to Ward,
the prophet if not the founder of American sociology.
Other Latvian Americans engaged in the professional fields in-
1 84 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
dude: Professor Charles Alaltador Purin, Professor P. Lejins, Dr. J. M.
Essenberg, Professor J. Ackerman, Dr. August Kyramel, Professor
A. E. Murniek, Dr. Michael Kasak, Miss Elsa Busch, Mrs. Marina
Karklina, Mrs. Elza Zebranska, opera singer, Mr. Richard Hermanson,
Professor Alexander Borovsky, a famous pianist, Mr. Peter Kihss, on
the editorial staff of the New York Herald Tribune, and Dr. Nicholas
Michelson. John Dored is a prominent reporter-cameraman of the
Paramount News, New York. J. M. Plesums, a former Latvian Navy
olEcer, is an inventor. J. Chucan was an engineer in the building of
one of New York’s bridges.
Several Latvians are occupied in the American Merchant Marine as
captains: J. Jordan, N. Grinins (a former commander of a sub-
marine), A. Skerberg, and A. Kirschfeldt. Many are mates and engi-
neers.
B. LITHUANIAN AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
Although claims have been made that the first Lithuanians arrived
in New York in the seventeenth century,^ the first major Lithuanian
immigration began about 1868.
In 1850 the present territory of Lithuania was seized by famine,
and a former priest, Petras Svotelis, headed a company of Lithuanian
immigrants to America. The exodus became more marked after the
second Polish-Lithuanian insurrection of 1863, which was followed
by bitter persecution. The famines of 1867 and 1868 and poor
economic conditions led to the migration of other groups. Some of
the immigrants settled on New England farms, while many others
were lured by the agents of the railway companies into Pennsylvania.
In 1 868, four Lithuanians settled in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, and were
soon followed by others. The newcomers spread to Danville, Sun-
bury, Mount Carmel, and other mining towns in Pennsylvania. Al-
though in 1871 and 1872 Danville had the largest Lithuanian colony
in the United States, numbering about 200 persons, Lithuanians were
shortly afterward found scattered throughout the whole of the anthra-
cite region, especially in Schuylkill, Luzerne, and Lackawanna coun-
ties, and in all the towns of the Wyoming Valley.
1 According to Simon Daukantas, the Lithuanian historian, the Duke of Courdand
colonized groups of Letts and Lithuanians, who had fled to Courdand to escape
serfdom, upon the Spanish island of Guadalupe in 1688; later the English disbanded
the setdement and transported the colonists to what is now New York — as reported
by Scnde, Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1938.
LITHUANIAN AMERICANS
185
In 1874 the Czarist government introduced compulsory military
service, and many young men came to America; in addition, both the
abolition of serfdom and the policy of bitter religious, political, and
national oppression pursued by the Russian authorities contributed
to swell the stream of immigrants. The influx into America in-
creased after the early 1 890’s and was strengthened by the fact, that
during this period Lithuanian rye, wheat, and flax could find no
markets abroad. Books and newspapers published by Lithuanians in
America and smuggled across the German border were passed from
hand to hand in the Lithuanian towns and villages and attracted con-
siderable attention. The revolution of 1905 and renewed Rus-
sian oppression gave a further stimulus to immigration, and many
Lithuanian socialists and revolutionaries sought refuge in the new
world.
Lithuanian writers estimate that, before 1899, 275,000 Lithuanian
immigrants had arrived in the United States. In that year a separate
classification was established by the American government. Between
1898 and 1914, 252,294 more Lithuanians entered the country. After
1914, the number was small: 1921-1930, 6,015; i93i“i9405 2,221;
1941-1943, 337.
Settlements. The Reverend A. Kaupas estimates that in 1904 about
50.000 Lithuanians were living in the anthracite region of Pennsyl-
vania; 25,000 in West Pennsylvania and West Virginia (Pittsburgh,
its vicinity, and near the soft coal mines); 10,000 in Philadelphia
and Baltimore; 15,000 in greater New York (almost exclusively in
Brooldyn and Long Island City) and its environs (Yonkers, New
York; and Jersey City, Elizabeth, Newark, and Paterson, New
Jersey); 25,000 in New England (Boston, Brockton, Lawrence,
Worcester, Waterbury, Union City, Hartford and Bridgeport);
1 0.000 in Ohio and Michigan (Cleveland, Detroit, and Grand Rapids) ;
50.000 in Illinois and Wisconsin (Chicago 25,000-30,000, Spring
Valley, Westville, Connesville, East Saint Louis, Waukegan, Ashland,
Sheboygan, and Milwaukee); and that several thousand were scat-
tered over the states of Missouri, Kansas, Montana, Colorado, and
Washington. The southern states were practically untouched by
Lithuanian immigration.
At the outset, the Lithuanians ' lived in close relations with their
coreligionists and nearest European neighbors, the Poles. In many
districts, such as Shamokin, Mount Carmel, and Shenandoah in Penn-
sylvania, they united with the Poles to form parishes and societies and
joined the same benevolent societies. But a trend toward separatism
1 86 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
became apparent in 1885, and these differences came to a head in
1889 when the Poles refused to acknowledge Father Alexander Burba
as the priest of the local church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. In
1892 the Lithuanians of Shamokin separated from the Poles and
established their own parishes at Mount Carmel and elsewhere in
Pennsylvania,
With the foundation of a free Lithuania, some thirty or forty
thousand Lithuanians elected to return to their native country. But
when the rouble and the mark fell in value, only about 10,000
remained in their native land and the rest returned to America.
We learn from official United States statistics that in 1920 there
were 135,068 foreign-bom Lithuanians in America, in 193^?
and in 1940, 165,771. In addition, there were in this country in 194^?
229,040 native-born persons of Lithuanian stock (“native white of
foreign or mixed parentage”). But these figures are open to certain
objections. Lithuanian critics claim that many persons listed as
Poles, Russians, and Germans were really Lithuanians. The Lithu-
anian convention held in New York City in March 1918 adopted
750,000 as the minimum estimate; but these figures made no allowance
either for those who had returned to their country (about 10 per cent)
or for those who had died, and the figure is therefore too high. Dr.
Kemesis estimated in 1924 a total of 455,000 Lithuanian Americans.
The discrepancies between the American and Lithuanian estimates
are more evident when we discover that only 272,680 persons regis-
tered Lithuanian as their mother tongue in the census of 1940. There
is some connection between this fact and the proportion of Lithu-
anian Jews, who numbered 25,886, or 2.1 per cent of the Lithuanian
immigrants.
Cultural Differentiation^ and Assimilation
Occupations, Only a minority of Lithuanian Americans are farm-
ers. Some are found in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin,
New Jersey, and Connecticut, but most of them associate farming with
the ruinous taxes and unprofitable drudgery they experienced in the
home country, and so they have turned to industrial pursuits instead.
They are found as foundrymen in western Pennsylvania; as weavers
in the cotton mills of New England and the silk mills of Paterson,
New Jersey; as tanners in Philadelphia, hatmakers in New York, dock-
workers in Cleveland, tailors in Brooklyn, Baltimore, and Chicago.
Many are employed in the packing houses in Chicago, in the oil and
2 Kaupas, ‘‘L’Eglise et les Lituaniens aux Etats-Unis,” Armales des nationalitis, XI,
pp. 232-234.
LITHUANIAN AMERICANS
187
sugar refineries around New York, and in the shoe factories in Bing-
hamton, New York, and Brockton, Massachusetts. In general they
belong to the lower working class. The second generation, how-
ever, tends to enter the professional class.
Religious divisions. The majority of Lithuanian Americans are
Roman Cathohcs, but there are a number of Lutherans, Calvinists,
and Freethinkers. The Roman Catholic Church bulks large in the
life of the members of every Lithuanian parish, as most of their social
organizations are connected with it. In 1871 the Lithuanians of
Shenandoah, at the request of the Archbishop of Philadelphia, invited
the Reverend Andrew Strupinskas, M.I.C., to take care of the Lithu-
anians in that community and its vicinity. A year later, the Reverend
Juskevicius organized a Lithuanian and Polish parish in Shamokin,
Pennsylvania. In 1 892 the split with the Poles led to the formation,
of an independent Lithuanian parish in that city. In 1886 Lithu-
anian parishes had been established in Brooklyn, Mahanoy City and
Hazelton, Pennsylvania, and in 1 887 in Baltimore. In aU, 1 1 8 parishes
were organized between 1886 and 1929. In 1944 there were about
120 Lithuanian parishes in the United States.
The first Lithuanian National Cathohc Church was founded in 1914
by the Lithuanians of Scranton, Pennsylvania, with the help of Bishop
Hodur, head of the Polish National Catholic Church of America.
S. B. Mickievicz, who was appointed its pastor, was succeeded by
J. Ciitenas. Mickievicz subsequently organized several Lithuanian
congregations in Chicago under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Carfora
of the Old Roman Catholic Church. At a synod held by the Polish
National Church in 1924, Gritenas was elected bishop of the Lithu-
anian churches. But the group seceded from the Poles to be headed
by Archbishop Geniotis. These Lithuanian churches accept the first
four general councils of the Roman Catholic Church and use the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed. The liturgy is Lithuanian. The
supreme authority is vested in a synod. There are parishes in Law-
rence, Massachusetts, and in Scranton, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and
Chicago.
Social divisions. The religious background is also intimately con-
nected with the factions among the Lithuanian Americans, which are
based on religious ideas rather than on economic, class, or intellectual
tendencies.®
3 See V. M. Palmer, Field Studies in Sociology, pp. 257-265. Chicago: The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1928, for an account of the Lithuanian colony at Canal-
port, Chicago. R. E. Park, The Immigrant Press and Its Control, pp. 52-54. New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1922, describes the nationalizir^ and denationdizing in-
fluences of the church among Lithuanians.
1 88 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
Before the first World War, the three largest Lithuanian associa-
tions in America were the Society of Lithuanian Patriots, the Lithu-
anian AlHance of America, and the Union of Roman Cathohc
Lithuanians. Each body pubhshed at its own expense books for
gratuitous distribution in Lithuania. The rest of the Lithuanian
immigrants were spht into three distinct groups. The Social Demo-
crats comprised the “radical” faction, and many eventually drifted
into communism. The Clerical group voiced its pohcies through the
medium of three weekly pubhcations, especially the daily Draugas
(Friend). The National Party represented the Lithuanian patriots;
they were less interested in Cathohcism but were enthusiastic na-
tionalists.
Organizations. The tendency of the Lithuanians to form com-
pact settlements enables them to organize their social fife through
social, hterary, rehgious, benevolent, and cooperative societies, which
imitate as far as possible their social institutions at home. These
activities were suppressed in prewar Russia, with the result that they
have found strong expression in America. There is an organization
for almost every purpose, and sometimes several of them.
It has been estimated that there are over two thousand Lithuanian
charitable and mutual-aid organizations in America. The largest
fraternal organizations are the Lithuanian Alliance of America, New
York, founded in 1886,^ and the Lithuanian Roman Catholic AlHance,
Wilkes-Barre, founded in 1901 when it separated from its parent
organization, the Lithuanian AlHance of America.
The Lithuanians have had to fight a particularly hard and long
battle for their national independence, and this may explain in part the
fact that Lithuanian immigrants do not quickly become assimilated.'
Even though so many Lithuanians were driven from their homes and
forced to shift for themselves as best they could, their country has re-
tained its sp'eU over them. The Lithuanian American is proud of the
tenacity with which he has preserved his language and his traditions.
The national spirit has been strengthened by frequent contacts with
the home country and by numerous cultural activities. In every
colony a marked interest is stiU taken in Lithuanian Hterature, drama,
painting, and other forms of art. Lithuanian parishes frequently
organize dramatic performances, where they sing their old dainos and
dance their traditional dances. Lithuanian radio programs are broad-
cast intermittently in most of the larger Lithuanian colonies.
^According to its secretary, the Lithuanian Alliance of America in December
1937 had 375 lodges with a membership of from 15,000 to 25,000. Its assets as ol
that date exceeded $2,100,000.
LITHUANIAN AMERICANS 189
Despite the strong and successful efforts of Lithuanian Americans
to preserve their Lithuanian culture pattern within the American
pattern, the Americanization process is making more and more serious
inroads into their ranks, especially where the American-born genera-
tion is concerned. The Lithuanian language used in this country
is already sprinkled with words that are understandable only to the
Lithuanians living in America, words that would be a foreign language
to the Lithuanians living in their native country. We hear such words
as jardas (yard), strytas (street), oranzis (orange), ame (ham),
auzas (house), donas (dirt), and so on.® The hold of Lithuania on
her sons in America, however, is still very strong. It is beauti-
fully expressed in the following confession of a Lithuanian Ameri-
can: ®
I am now a broken old man, physically. The best years of my life were
spent in the steel blast furnaces of Pennsylvania. There I helped with
my muscle to complete the work which nature started.
My wife has gone to her just reward these many years past. Her grave
lies amongst these hills. Flowers will barely grow upon it. The dust that
is in my lungs, and which gives me and my friends no peace, also covers
her grave.
My children have grown up. They are educated, and the education
given them by America has taken them from me. I speak English only
as an untaught alien can speak it. But my children know all the slang
phrases. They speak differently, they act differently, and when they
come to visit me they come alone. They do not explain why they do
not bring their friends, but I instinctively sense the reason. They should
not fear. I would not cause them any embarrassment. But they too
look upon their father as an inferior, an alien, a bohunk.
So my only consolation is my memory. And strange as it may seem
to you, my experiences in America are not the ones that crowd my
thoughts. No, it is the memory of my childhood days, spent in far
away Lithuania. I remember the folklore and the great green forests.
Once I asked my mother to explain the noises that we heard coming
from the heart of the forest after sundown. And my mother said the
sounds were the songs of joy uttered by the spirits of departed aniiiials
that had lived freely. The heart of the forest, she said, was their heaven.
After I had learned that story the heart of the forest and all natural fast-
nesses were always holy places to me.
So now these simple memories are with me, not the thought of Amer-
ica's greatness. Maybe it is because I was so strong in body when I left
Lithuania, and am now a broken old man. And the forest did not take
my health and my children away from me.
sAn excellent and scholarly study of this problem is A. Senn, “Eioiges aus der
Sprache der Amerika Litauer,” Studi Baltics 11 , pp. 35-58, Rome, 1932.
6 His Afnerica, a papiphlet made up from a letter written to the Foreign Language
Information Service, New York City.
190 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
Na.turdiza.tion and literacy. The tendency of the Lithuanians to
assimhate less rapidly than do other immigrant groups is reflected in
the low rate of naturalization — 55.8 per cent in 1940, the lowest
among European immigrants. Originally higher education was prac-
tically unknown among the Lithuanian immigrants, but the situation
in this respect is rapidly improving and there are now a considerable
number of Lithuanian physicians, priests, surgeons, lawyers, actors,
professors, and the like. Yet, in 1930, it was estimated that 24.5 per
cent of foreign-bom Lithuanians (10 years old and over) were
illiterate, a very high rate surpassed only by the immigrants from
Italy, Portugal, Syria, and the Azores. But it should be remembered
that before 1914 there were no Lithuanian schools in the home country
and private teaching of the native tongue was strictly forbidden by
the Russian government.
Education. The first Catholic Lithuanian school in America dates
from about 1895. It was founded in Chicago and instruction was
in the hands of non-Lithuanians, usually sisters of the Polish congre-
gation of the Nazarene Sisters. The first purely Lithuanian educa-
tional establishment was founded at the Parish School at Mount
Carmel, Pennsylvania, in 1907, under the control of the Sisters of St.
Casimir. In 1933 the Sisters of St. Casimir operated twenty-two
schools with a stalf of 170 teachers and a total attendance of 5,527
Lithuanian children, of whom all but 10 per cent were native bom.
In 1936, the Catholic parishes conducted forty-eight parochial schools,
attended by over 10,000 pupils.
The Lithuanian Catholics also support a number of other educa-
tional institutions. The Marianapolis College and High School,
Thompson, Connecticut, was founded in 1931 by the Marian Fathers,
though the origins of this foundation date back to 1926. Its
Lithuanian- American Students and Professional Association publishes
a well-edited monthly Studentu Zodis (Students’ World) in Lithu-
an^n.
The press. An important role in the life of the Lithuanian Amer-
icans is played by the press. In 1879, Tvarauskas issued the first
Lithuanian-American publication, a Lithuanian-English dictionary,
but it was not finished. In the same year he started to publish in New
York City a Lithuanian newspaper, Lietuviszka Gazieta (Lithuanian
Gazette). The first Lithuanian newspaper in pure text was the
Vienybe Lietuivninku (Lithuanian Unity), which appeared in Ply-
mouth, Pennsylvania, in 1884. This paper, later transferred to
Brooklyn, is now published as the Vienybe (Unity). In 1885, Dr.
LITHUANIAN AMERICANS
191
John Sliupas inaugurated publication in New York Gty of the na-
tionalist Lietuvos Balsas (Lithuanian Voice). In all, some thirty-one
Lithuanian periodicals were being published in America in 1940.
The majority of the Lithuanians are Cathohc and their views are
represented by the Chicago daily Draugas (Friend) and the weekly
Garsas (Sound). The Lithuanian Nationalists, on the other hand, are
represented by the Brooklyn daily Vienybe (Unity), the Cleveland
weekly Dirva (Field), and the Worcester weekly A?nerikos Lietuvis
(American Lithuanian) . All of them heartily support the Lithuanian
national government. The Socialists maintain the Chicago daily
Naujienos (News) and the Boston weekly Keleivis (Traveller). The
Communists publish the Brooklyn daily Laisve (Freedom ) and weekly
Naujoji Gadyne (New Era) and the Chicago Vilnis (Wave).
About 1 890, certain educated Lithuanians began to publish news-
papers and books, and a book-publishing society, the Tevynes
Myletoju Draugija (Lovers of the Fatherland), was founded.
Writers and pubhcists prominent in the liberal and national movement
in the United States were Sliupas, the poet Jonas Jilius, the Reverend
A. Burba, V. Dembskis, J. Sernas (Adomaitis), Kaledu Kauke
(K. Jurgelionis), Karolis Vairas (V. K. Rackauskas), J. Simydas,
and others. In all, several hundred Lithuanian books were printed in
America and smuggled into Lithuania, together with Lithuanian news-
papers. Beyond doubt, the contact between those who had remained
at home and those who had emigrated was a major factor in arousing
the national aspirations of the Lithuanians under the reacdonary
Russian rule.''
Many Lithuanian organizations were formed during World War I.
Their primary purpose was to aid Lithuanian war sufferers and to
assist Lithuania to secure autonomy and independence. November i,
1916, was named Lithuanian Day and about $200,000 were raised
and turned over to the American Red Cross on condition that the
money be spent in Lithuania. On June 8-1 1, 1919, a Lithuanian
convention was held in Chicago, where the Lithuanian Liberty Bell,
now in the War Museum in Kaunas, was rung for the first time.
When the independence of Lithuania was finally proclaimed on
February 16, 1918, a group of over two hundred ex-service men from
the American Army went to Lithuania to join the Lithuanian military
and air forces. At the head of this group was Captain Stephen Darius,
7 For a list of the 1914 Lithuanian-American periodicals, see F. S. Kemesis, Co-
operation among the IJtlmanians in the United States^ p. 12. Washington, D. C.:
Catholic University of America Press, 1924.
192
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
who, with Lieutenant Stanley Girenas, made the ill-fated trans-
Atlantic flight in July, 1933. In February, 1920, the Lithuanian
Financial Mission came to America to raise a loan for the needs of the
new state — the Lithuanian Liberty Loan. Over a million and a half
dollars were subscribed by American Lithuanians. America formally
recognized the new state on May 31, 1921.
American Lithuanians and World War 11 . Even before Pearl
Harbor, the American Lithuanians began to show their fears for their
homeland when, in March, 1939, Lithuania was forced to cede the
Memel territory to Germany. But the real blow came when, on
June 14, 1940, Russia presented Lithuania with an ultimatum charging
her with violating the mutual-assistance pact of October, 1939; and
on June 15, Russian troops swarmed into the country. A new pro-
Soviet government was formed in the country, and President Smetona
and other leaders had to flee. The election for the new Parliament
was interpreted by the Soviet authorities as a plebiscite in favor of
jo ining the Soviet Union, and Lithuania was incorporated into the
U.S.S.R.
Antanas Smetona, first president of Lithuania and its president-in-
esdle after the Russians invaded it, came to the United States as a guest
of the United States government and intended to return to Lithuania
after the war. He lived in Pittsburgh and Chicago and led the fight
for restoration of the freedom of his country, making frequent
speeches and urging an end to the type of aggression in Europe which
smothered Lithuania. He died on January 9, 1944, in a fire that swept
the home of his son in Cleveland.
The movement continued to be headed by P. Zadeilds, minister of
Lithuania to the United States, who continued to retain his post in
Washington.® The Lithuanian-American Council of Greater New
York addressed a memorandum on November 30, 1943, to the United
States government in which it expressed anxiety for Lithuania’s
future in connection -with the declarations made at the Moscow Con-
ference. The Council urged the restoration of complete independ-
ence to Lithuania after the war.®
Over three hundred Americans of Lithuanian descent from Chicago,
Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, and other localities in the twenty-one
8 See P. Zadeikis, “An Aspect of the Lithuanian Record of Independence,” p, 49, in
“A Challenge to Peacemakers,” Anmls (of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science), March, 1944.
» The Lithuanian Bulletin, published by the Lithuanian National Council, 73 West
104 St.| New York City, since 1943, contains summaries of these activities.
LITHUANIAN AMERICANS
193
states representing the League to Liberate Lithuania, the American
Friends of Lithuania, and the Federation of Eastern Lithuanian Organ-
izations, held a convention on February 5-6, 1944, at the Hotel Penn-
sylvania, New York City, for the purpose of presenting the case for
Lithuanian independence to the American public and to launch a
$5,000,000 war-bond drive among American Lithuanians. A peti-
tion was sent to President Roosevelt for aid in the restoration of inde-
pendence of the republic of Lithuania. During the month of Febru-
ary, 1944, as in previous years, gatherings observing the anniversary of
the Lithuanian Declaration of Independence were held in many
Lithuanian-American centers. The communistic forces among the
Lithuanian Americans held the so-called Lithuanian-American “demo-
cratic” conference in Brooklyn on December 18-19, ^943-^'’
Contributions to American Life
' The Lithuanian Americans are not far behind other nationalities in
providing leaders in the arts, education, business, and sports.^^ Thus,
Mikas Petrauskas, composer of a large number of popular Lithuanian
songs, about twenty Lithuanian operettas, and a Lithuanian opera,
was the first musically trained Lithuanian to work among his people
in America.^® In addition to writing music, he did much to popu-
larize Lithuanian folk dances and was an able organizer of Lithuanian
singing choirs. He maintained at different times three conservatories
of music — ^in Brooklyn, Chicago, and Boston. With the exception
of his opera, “Egle- 2 alcui Karaliene,” presented in Boston in 1924,
his compositions were of a light, popular character, utilizing exten-
sively motives from the numerous Lithuanian folk songs. There are
other well-known musical leaders. Anna Kaska, contralto, was one
of the first singers to be chosen from radio auditions for stardom with
the Metropohtan Opera Company. Professor Joseph 2 ilevicius,
composer and former director of the Conservatory of Music at
Klaipeda, now lives in America. Among other prominent Lithuanian
10 For a pro-Soviet attack on the forces favoring the liberation of the Baltic states,
see Gregory Meiksms, The Baltic Biddle, p. 208. New York: L. B. Fischer, 1943.
11 The best work in this field is Susivienijimo Lietuviu Amerikoje, Auksinio Juvilie-
iaus, Albumas 1886-1936. New York: Lithuanian Alliance of America, 1936. Al-
though the principal aim of this Album is to record pictorially the fifty years’ ac-
tivities of the Alliance, it' nevertheless represents a fair picture of Lithuanian workers
in cultural and political activities of America. The work contains portraits of many
outstanding T iVbnanian Americans and of some prominent leaders in the re-establish-
ment of the independent state of Lithuania.
12 Petrauskas was bom in 1873 and died in Lithuania in 1937. He first came to
the United States in 1907, but after a concert tour of Lithuanian settlements re-
turned to Italy for further studies. He came back to America in 1909.
194 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
musicians in the United States are Alexander Aleksis, formerly of the
Conservatory of Warsaw; the violinist, Professor J. Zidanavi&s;
Anthony Pocius, director of the Beethoven Conservatory of Music
of Chicago; and Helen Mickunas, a radio, concert, and opera star.
M. J. Sheilas is connected with the Chicago Art Institute. In the
field of painting, Ignas Yields of Chicago stands out and Jonas
Szileika was awarded a first prize by the Chicago Art Institute while
he lived in America.
The Lithuanian-American group is rich in talented literary men.
Dr. M. J. Vinikas, secretary of the Lithuanian Alliance of America,
is the author of Economic Relations of Lithuania and Diplomatic Rela-
tions of Lithuania (theses, American University, Washington, D. C.,
1933, 1934). In the field of education are the Reverend Joseph
Vaitkevicius, Dr. J. Navickas, Reverend Michael Civulskis, Dr. J.
Raymond-Rimavicius, E. Ziurys, and Lieutenant P. Moncius. In
civic and pohrical affairs, Casimir Kriauciunas (Kay) is judge of the
Superior Court of Seattle, Washington. John T. Zuris is a Chicago
municipal judge, and Frank Mast, formerly counselor of the Lithu-
anian Legation, was assistant district attorney of Chicago. Dr. A.
Velybus and A. Janusatis (Janushat) are members of the Pennsylvania
legislature, K. Paulauskas of the New Jersey, J. De Righter-Deraitis
of the Ohio, and Nadas Rastenis of the Maryland legislature. W. J.
Wimbiscusis is judge of the Cook County Circuit Court of Chicago,
and J. P. Uvick, judge of the city of Grosse Point, Michigan. J.
Kairis, mayor of Seatonville, Ilhnois, Anna C. Lakawitz, mayor of
Liimdale, Ohio, and J. Vansavage, mayor of New Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania, are others who have achieved prominence in civic affairs.
In the field of athletics, the three who are probably the best known
are Jack Sharkey (Juozas.!Zukauskas) , the former world’s heavyweight
champion; Billie Burke (Vincas Burkauskas), golfer; and Jack Good-
man, golf champion.
Miss Anna Bematitus (Bemotaite), of Lithuanian parentage, who
served on Bataan and Corregidor as a navy nurse, was the first person
in the United States naval service (in 1942) to receive the award of
the Legion of Merit.
C. ESTONIAN AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
There is no accurate information about Estonian immigrants before
World War I; but it is stated authoritatively that the first Estonian
ESTONIAN AMERICANS
195
immigrants landed in the United States around 1870. The first more
or less definite wave in immigration began around 1890. We cannot
ascertain its strength, because most of those coming here carried
Russian passports and thus were counted as Russians. On the other
hand, those who passed through other European ports on their way
to America were undoubtedly counted as members of those nation-
alities. In fact, even the United States census of 1920 grouped the
Estonians with the Latvians and Russians.
The first news of Estonian farmers here was received through
Finnish mediation. Information sent by Finnish clergy in America
to Dr. Oscar Kallas, who was later Estonian envoy in London, ap-
peared in Postmees of November 20, 1896. A significaint portion
of this news referred to seven Estonian farmer families in Dakota,
who had arrived there some years earlier from Crimea. Later, to
these immigrant farmers who looked for better farming opportunities
in America were added industrial workers and artificers. But the
main flow of immigrants commenced only after the abortive Russian
revolution of 1905. The largest number arrived between 1905 and
1908, although the flow of immigration remained fairly steady until
1914. It was a chaotic and unorganized movement that took Esto-
nians to America, and the chief reasons for it were the narrow
economic conditions that prevailed at home under the Czarist regime
and the fable of easy life across the ocean. Other factors were letters
from friends and relations who had settled earher in the “land of
plenty,” and the propaganda of shipping lines.
The first arrivals settled usually in the seaports of America; thus,
New York and San Francisco became particularly the places of their
abode. The farmers from Crimea, on the other hand, followed their
calling. The largest group settled near Irma and Gleason in Wiscon-
sin, where even today some fifty families can be found. The next
largest settlement was near Tacoma and Spokane, Washington.
Many of these immigrants crossed the continent to find homes,
because of the fact that some Estonians had landed on the Pacific
coast, settled there, and induced these later arrivals to come west from
New York. There were few skilled workers, few professional men
or merchants among the immigrants. The few who were better
educated and got better jobs were not outstanding among their
compatriots.
Not until February 2, 1920, did Estonia sign a peace treaty with
Soviet Russia. Consequently, it was not until 192: that the postwar
Estonian immigration began and that accurate figures were available.
196 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
In contrast to the prewar immigration, these individuals all came
through the port of New York, and very few of them decided to
take up farming. A majority were laborers, and quite a substantial
group was composed of the intelligentsia, who had suffered during
the war and who wanted to escape the difficult times that Estonia
had faced from 1 9 1 8 to 1 920. Most of them had some ties with former
emigrants, and nearly all of them remained in New York City. There
they became small businessmen and tradesmen, a majority of them
engaging in the building trades involving carpentry work and paint-
ing. _
It is extremely interesting to compare the census figures with the
unofficial estimates of Estonian leaders in the United States. Ac-
cording to the census, we received officially 765 immigrants from
Estonia in 1924, 1,576 for the period 1924-1930, and 506 from
1 9 3 1 - 1 940. But the statement that, according to their mother tongue,
there were only 138 individuals in 1910 who spoke Estonian, and that
the number was 1,024 1920, and 2,908 in 1930, unquestionably does
not give the complete figures. The same criticism applies to the
official census figures of 1940, which inform us that in that year there
were 4, 1 7 8 foreign-born Estonians and i ,480 native white Estonians —
a total of only 6,658 Estonians and their children. On the other
hand. Consul Kuusik and other leaders believe that 60,000 Estonians
and children is a reasonable estimate.
If we use again the American official census for the distribution of
Estonian foreign-born immigrants, we see that they live mainly in
the middle Atlantic states and California, more than 50 per cent
living in New York City. It is interesting to note that Estonians in
North America have grouped in northern sections comparable to the
climatic conditions of their homeland.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
In the Atlantic section of the United States, the majority of the
Elstonian Americans are located in the four large cities — ^New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In the environment of New
York can be found, especially on Long Island and in New Jersey,
a number of Estonians living on small vegetable and chicken farms
and working in their spare time at outside jobs in neighboring towns.
In New Jersey, the Estonians settled in most of the cities in the
northern part of the state. Some 2,000 Estonians are located in
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, in addition to approxi-
ESTONIAN AMERICANS
197
mately 1,000 in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Similar
small groups are found in Pennsylvania and the Virginias.
In the Lakes region, as in the Atlantic group, the Estonians live
mostly in the cities. In fact, in all lake-shore industrial cities,
Estonians can be found as sailors on lake ships and workers in fac-
tories, mines, and log and lumber camps. In small cities they are
usually locksmiths and mechanics. In Wisconsin, they are located
around the towns of Irma and Gleason, the only large Estonian colony
in the midwestern and western states of the United States. They
live in close proximity to one another, mainly on dairy farms.
On the west coast there is a settlement in Portland, Oregon, which
was founded as early as 1878. The ships of the Russian Navy
visited Portland for coal and provisions, thus giving the Estonian
sailors a chance to desert. Some few moved out into other cities or
formed farming communities in both Oregon and Washington. The
same process was carried on in California, San Francisco remaining
the second largest colony of Estonians in the United States; but some
moved out into the agricultural areas.
Religion. If we notice that Estonia proper has 78.2 per cent
Lutherans, 19 per cent Greek Orthodox, and less than one per cent
of Adventists, Methodists, Evangelists, and other Christian denomina-
tions, we have an indication of the religious divisions of American
Estonians. About 80 per cent are Lutherans, and the remaining
percentages remain about the same as in the home country. As is
usually the case with Protestant immigrants, the interest in their faith
weakens in this country. On the other hand, this is less true among
the American Estonians than among many other national groups.
Organizations. The majority of the prewar immigrants lacked
patriotic feelings. Of thek former homeland, oppressed under a'
foreign yoke, they remembered only poverty. In America also many
were used as temporary laborers, who found employment in boom
years and were unemployed during depressions. Employers were
mostly American bom. The Estonian immigrant at best worked up
to the position of foreman or overseer. All in all, the immigrants’
social and cultural positions were such that they inevitably felt their
inferiority.
The same factor operated in political life. The majority of Esto-
nians did not take out American citizenship and, consequently, had
no vote. Political leaders did not have to consider them; moreover,
they were few in number. Their children came to underrate their
198 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
fathers’ homeland which, until after World War I, did not exist
pohtically. The only tie that these immigrants had with their
homeland was the Estonian press, but this was ineffectual, since few
settlers subscribed.
A sudden change in the attitude of Estonian Americans was
brought about by the Estonian War of Liberation in 1 9 1 8- 1 9 2 o. The
victorious conclusion of the war and the estabhshment of the Estonian
Republic helped to cure this inferiority complex and raise their pride
in their national background. Estonia was no longer the country of
poor emigrants but of victorious soldiers. Estonians in America sud-
denly discovered with a certain pride that they were Estonians also.
National reconstruction and the achievements at home, with which
the immigrants keep informed through participation every five years
in the Congress of Overseas Estonians, tended to increase this pride.
Estonian Americans, revisiting their former homeland, found then-
country changed, and returned to America with different views. A
new spirit has been developed by recent immigrants from independent
Estonia, most of whom belong to the educated classes and are naturally
more culturally conscious than were the earher unskilled workers.
And by now many of those earher settlers have risen on the social
ladder.
There is a mutual-benefit organization among the American Esto-
nians. The first social Estonian society was formed in New York in
1898. Today there are nine Estonian- American societies: The Eisto-
nian Educational Society, New York City; Arendaja, Cleveland; Kodu,
Detroit; the Chicago Estonian Club; the Estonian Society of Southern
Cahfomia, Los Angeles; the Estonian Society of San Francisco; the
World Association of Estonians, founded in 1940; the Boston Estonian
Society; and the Baltimore Estonian Society.
In contrast to other immigrant groups, the Estonians are not so
extensively subdivided into factional sections. The work of the
Estonian Educational Society of New York, arising in December 1929
from the fusion of several organized groups of Estonians existing at
that time, may be taken as typical. It hires its own rooms, which are
kept open every night, arranges frequent socials, participates in folk-
dance festivals, has its own choir, celebrates Estonia’s national holidays,
and its members enjoy the privileges of the library, restaurant and bar,
billiard room and dance floor; it also has its own dancing troupe and
broadcasts from time to time on the radio. Its remarkable success in
attracting the American-born generation to participate in its cultural
activities is possibly due to the very able leadership of the society and
FINNISH AMERICANS
199
the ability of the organization to give these young people “good fun”
— as expressed by an Estonian authority. . No doubt, the small num-
ber (comparatively speaking) of New York Estonians is also a factor
in their strength.
The press. Two Estonian newspapers were started before World
War I, but soon went out of existence. The Ameerika Eestlane
(American Estonian) experienced the same fate in half a year’s time.
Today, the only Estonian periodical is the Meie Tee (Our Path),
a monthly, published in New York City by the Estonian Educational
Society, which sets a high standard of immigrant journalism.
Education. There is only one Estonian school in America, and
that one is in New York City, where the Estonian Educational Society
holds classes every Friday night for adults and for children. It is not
a school in the real sense of the word, but tries, rather, to develop
itself as such on the basis of its teaching of the language, folk dances,
and national songs. There are no Estonian church schools.
Contributions to American Life
The Estonian Americans, although one of the smallest American
minorities, are not without outstanding names to which they point
with pride. Professor Theodor A. Wiel is a member of the depart-
ment of history and political science of the American International
College (Springfield, Massachusetts); Professor George Valley is a
member of Yale University faculty; Dr. Linda A. Tischer is physician
at the Cleveland Hospital; John Torpats has published several books
on economics; William Zimdim is a prominent businessman at
Elsinore, California; Andrew Winter is a prominent artist-painter;
John Okelman heads the Estonian Educational Society of New
York City; Ludwig Juht, an outstanding contrabass soloist, is a
member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
D. FINNISH AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
The first Finnish immigrants to America accompanied the group of
Swedes who in the seventeenth century established a colony in what
is now the state of Delaware, near the present site of Wilmington.
Gustavus Adolphus, famous Swedish warrior king, was the original
sponsor of this colonization project. He foresaw the advantages to
be derived from establishing trade outposts in the newly discovered
America, and in 1626, urged thereto by Willem Usselinx, a Nether-
200 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
lander, he formed a commercial company for that purpose. War in
Germany in 1630 interrupted his plans, and the funds of the company
were arbitrarily used for the war. After the death of Gustavus, how-
ever, the Swedish government revived the colonization scheme, and
as a result the Kah77ar Nyckel and the Fogel Grip sailed up Delaware
Bay, in the spring of 1638, with the first group of Swedish settlers.
There were numerous Finns in Sweden in our colonial period who
were offered inducements to emigrate to the new colonies; such of
them as were found guilty of offenses were forced to emigrate. In
consequence, when in July, 1641, the Kalntar Nyckel again sailed
from Gothenburg for New Sweden, a large proportion of its pas-
sengers were Finns. The same held true of the thirteen other expedi-
tions that came from Sweden to Delaware before the Swedish colonies
were captured by the Dutch in 1655. Finns who had prospered in
the new country urged their friends and relatives to join them, and
soon there were more Finnish volunteers than the ships could carry.
The emigration of Finns even created international complications.
After the Dutch had taken possession of the Swedish settlements in
the new world and the direct flow of immigrants from Sweden had
thereby been stopped, a group of Finns made their way across Norway
to Oslo, where they embarked for Holland. Over the objection of
the Swedish government they were shipped to America by the Dutch.
Some ten years later, in 1 664, the Swedish settlements passed into
the hands of the British. The Swedish and Finnish colonists were
dissatisfied and rebellious, and in 1668 and 1669 open insurrection
broke out. The leader of the movement was a Finn who claimed to
be the son of Count Koenigsmark, a famous Swedish general, and who
sometimes used the name Koenigsmark (or Coningsmarke), but more
generally was known by the names Marcus Jacobsen or the “Long
Finn.” The rebellion was unsuccessful and the Long Finn and
many of his Finnish and Swedish associates were captured. Most of
them were let off with heavy fines, but the Long Finn and some of
his most important men were deported.
These Finnish and Swedish colonists soon turned the land upon
which the cities of Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Chester now stand,
from a wilderness into cultivated farmland. In time, some of them
migrated to southern New York state. Many names in Delaware,
Pennsylvania, and southern New York testify to the presence of
Finns in those states, and recent historical research has disclosed that
a number of the oldest and best-known families in Philadelphia and
Delaware Valley trace their descent from these early Finnish immi-
FINNISH AMERICANS
201
grants. John Morton, for example, one of the signers of the Declara-
tion of Independence, was proud of his Finnish ancestry. William
Penn bought land from the Finnish settlers and has left written testi-
mony as to the cleanliness of their home life and their thrifty and
industrious habits. He was impressed by the fact that in nearly all
Finnish families there were from ten to tu^enty children.
Immigration
After this first period of Finnish colonization there was a long
period during which, so far as is known, no Finnish immigrants came
to America. The next notable immigration of Finns was directed
to Alaska. Prior to 1867, it will be recalled, this territory belonged
to Russia, which used it mainly for trading purposes. Russian ships
carrying on such trade were largely manned with Finns, at that time
Russian subjects. Many who came as seamen remained as settlers.
Finnish immigration to Alaska was actively promoted by Arvid Adolf
Etholen, a Finn, who for a while was governor of Alaska. Several
hundred Finns settled in the territory between 1835 and 1865; they
constituted the majority of the Europeans who had come to Alaska to
live during the Russian rule. As fishermen, hunters, and foresters in
the Sitka ^strict, the Finnish settlers prospered greatly. They were
accompanied or followed by a number of pastors, among whom was
the late Uno Cygnaeus, who was to become famous as the founder
of the system of primary education in Finland.
The discovery of gold in California brought an influx of Finns to
that state. Several hundred came as seamen to the Pacific coast in
1849 afterward settled there. In 1855, during the Crimean War,
some Finnish sailors who had enlisted under the Russian flag remained
in America in order to avoid being captured by the British on the high
seas. They settled in New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
New York. In 1861 more than a hundred Finns enlisted in the
United States Navy and served during the last years of the Civil War.
They settled subsequently in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Finnish immigration on a large scale did not, however, begin until
1864. A number of Finns came to the copper country in upper
Michigan with some Norwegians who had been engaged by the
Quincy Mining Company of Hancock to work in the Houghton
County mines. A group of Finns emigrated from Tromso in
Norway, in the spring of 1864, to St. Peter, Minnesota. Another
small group sailed from Hammerfest somewhat later with Red Wing,
Minnesota, as its destination. A fourth group came from Vadso in
202 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
the same summer. Some found work in lumber camps; others took
up homesteads in Cokato, Holmes City, and Franklin, Minnesota.
Duluth, Minnesota, became the capital for Finnish immigrants in that,
part of the country. Many Finns served with the Union Army
during the Civil War. After the war, they settled in different parts
of the United States, but mainly in the Midie West. Many returned
to farming or worked in the newly opened mines of Michigan.
In the eighties and nineties immigration increased greatly. The
majority of the immigrants went to Michigan, Minnesota, and other
northern states where the climate most closely resembled that of their
native land. They worked in the railway gangs that helped to build
communication across the continent, in the logging camps of the
Northwest, and in the iron and copper mines. They soon gained a
good reputation as miners in Michigan, Minnesota, and Montana;
most of the pioneer Finnish miners in the upper peninsula of Michigan
had gained their experience in the mines of Northern Sweden and
Norway. Finnish immigrants also settled in New England. Finns
came to Boston as early as 1 860 as sailors. By correspondence and
visits to their homeland, they spread news of America among their
friends and relatives, thus stimulating immigration. Finns in New
England are located now principally in Gardner, Fitchburg,
Worcester, the suburbs of Boston, Quincy, and the Cape Ann district,
where they have slowly and methodically rehabilitated abandoned
farms.
In the early days, Swedish-speaking immigrants from Finland out-
numbered the Finnish-speaking ones three to one. Later the pro-
portions became more nearly equal, but even then the loss of popula-
tion was relatively greater among the Swedish-speaking group. After
1870, the percentage of those who spoke Finnish as their mother
tongue increased, resulting in a corresponding increase in the per-
centage of Finnish-speaking immigrants.
The first Finnish immigrants left their homes because their country,
being industrially undeveloped, consisted chiefly of large families and
small farms, and it seemed more feasible to break up the former than
the latter. A failure of the crops in Norway, Sweden, and Finland
in 1867, with a resultant famine in 1868, gave the emigration move-
ment a strong impetus. The shortage of food was felt first in Norway
and Sweden and later in Finland. The introduction of compulsory
military service in Finland came just at the time when emigration
was increasing, and this increase was fostered by the Russification
policy of the Czarist government which culminated in the February
FINNISH AMERICANS
203
manifesto in 1 899, whereby the constitutional rights of Finland were
revoked. Against this general background, we must consider the
economic and social changes produced in the traditionally agricultural
community by the industrial and capitalistic revolution. These
changes induced the Pohjalaiset, the settlers of the prosperous farming
province of Vaasa, to provide the bulk of immigrants from Finland.
In addition, American steamship companies were promoting immigra-
tion in order to attract workers for railway construction.
The result of all these factors was that more than one tenth of the
population left its homeland, although before 1914 about 40 per cent
of the emigrants had returned.^
It is difficult to determine the exact number of Finns who emigrated
to the United States, partly because, when they entered the country
through Norway, they were frequently classified as Norwegians.
Similar ethnographical inaccuracies occurred when th«y came in
Swedish or Danish boats or entered the United States through Canada.
This is borne out by the fact that the statistics of immigration give only
19,930 Finns coming to the United States, while the 1940 census
reports that 284,220 gave Finland as their country of origin and that
117,210 of these were foreign bom. Finnish is given as mother
tongue by 230,420. The Finns themselves estimate their numbers in
the United States as high as 350,000 to 400,000, including the children
born in America of Finnish parents.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilatmi
The Finns have always sought those regions of the United States
that closely resemble Finland. Although there are Finns in every
state of the Union, they are found chiefly in the northern states and
on the Pacific coast. Michigan in 1930 had the largest Finnish popu-
lation, followed by Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, Washing-
ton, Cahfomia, Ohio, and Wisconsin, in the order named.
Occupations. To some extent, the Finns have settled in colonies.
The largest Finnish population has always been found in Michigan’s
Houghton County, with Calumet and Hancock as its chief urban
centers. Another Finnish colony in Michigan is found in Marquette
County, in the towns of Ishpeming, Negaunee, Marquette, and
Republic. Thousands of Finns have moved from Duluth, Minne-
sota, to the mining towns on the Vermillion and Mesaba ranges.
Thousands more have taken up farming in the vicinity of mining
1 0 . K. Kilpi, “Statistics of Population,” Finland, The Country, Its Feople and
Institutions. Helsinki, 1926.
204 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
towns, and St. Louis County contains one of the largest Finnish com-
munities in America. On the western coast, Astoria, Oregon, has
attracted Finnish fishermen; one of the chief canning factories there
is owned by Finns. From there they have spread to the neighboring
farmlands, and many are farmers on the dike lands along the Columbia
River. Several thousand Finns are found in Aberdeen, Washington.
Many are working in the sawmills of Eureka and Fort Bragg, Cali-
fornia, and others as loggers in the California red-wood forests.
There is a settlement of raisin growers' in Reedley, Cahfornia. In
Wisconsin, Finnish farmers are found mostly in and near the towns of
Turtle Lake, Owen, and Phelps. In Illinois, the majority of the Finns
hve in Chicago, Waukegan, and DeKalb, and work in the wire mills
and other factories. In Ohio, many have moved from the coast of
Lake Erie to the inland steel mills and farms. Others own land near
the manufacturing towns in Massachusetts and make a good living by
growing strawberries and other garden produce. Several hundred
Finnish farmers hve in Maine. In general, though they may work
for a time in the factories in large towns or in mines, as soon as they
have saved enough money to purchase a piece of land or claim a farm
or “homestead,” the Finns leave the city and make the farm their
permanent home and their main source of income. Many attempts
have been made to settle Finnish fanners in Florida, Georgia, New
Mexico, Texas, and other southern states, but the men have mostly
returned to the north, not being accustomed to the southern climate
and forms of vegetation.
The Finns are behevers in the cooperative system, and their cooper-
ative creameries in Minnesota and cooperative shops in New England
testify to their abihty in establishing this method of production and
distribution. Even some of the smallest Finnish communities in
America have their own osuuskauppa (cooperative stores) . The first
notable cooperative enterprise was the Finnish cannery in Astoria,
Oregon, where the famous Columbia River salmon and other fish are
packed and canned. Many other forms of cooperative business have
since been set up by the Finns, such as restaurants, farms, fire insur-
ance, wholesale and retail grocery stores, newspapers, meat markets,
and apartment buildings.
Churches and church organizations. Nearly aU Finns in the United
States belong to the Lutheran Church. Within that church there are,
however, three religious organizations or groups, difiFering from each
other in various ways. The Suomi Synod or Finnish Evangelical
Lutheran Church of America is the strongest of the three. This
FINNISH AMERICANS
205
church’s educational work is extensive. In 1926 it held 100 summer
schools, the pupils numbering 4,747 and the teachers 105. The edu-
cational department of the Synod also includes Suomi College and
Theological Seminary at Hancock, organized in 1 896.^ The history
of this coUege dates back to 1896. Its primary aim is the training of
Finnish ministers, the Theological Seminary being opened in 1904.
It is the only institution for higher learning in the United States that
offers courses in Finnish. In 1932 it was affiliated with the University
of Michigan.
At the time of the establishment of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran
Church in 1890, there was, particularly in Calumet, considerable
opposition to the new organization; as a result, a separate local church
known as the Finnish National Church was founded. As other
churches joined the movement, an organization was formed at Rock
Springs, Wyoming, on June 26, 1899, later incorporated at
Ironwood, Michigan, as the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran National
Church of America.
Among the Finns who first settled in Calumet were a number
belonging to a sect founded by Provost Lars Levi Laestadius of Pa j ala
in Sweden. Disagreements arose between them and other Lutherans,
and in December, 1872, under the leadership of Salomon Korteniemi,
the Lutheran Society was organized. In 1879 this name was changed
to the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Congregation. As other congre-
gations of Finns in Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon
were organized on the same basis, they came into fellowship with
this body under the name of the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran
Church.
Temperance and other societies. The Finns in America have been
especially active in the temperance movement. In 1895 the Fohjan
Tahti (North Star) Temperance Association was founded, and many
similar societies arose later. Their names, such as Koitto (Morning
Twilight), Onni (Luck), Hyva Toivo (Good Hope), Sade (Ray)
and Soihtu (Torch), indicate how idealistic was their nature. They
cooperated with the Anti-Saloon League in carrying on the fight
against the sale of intoxicating drinks, and they also served as social
centers. At one time there were 160 Finnish temperance societies
possessing halls for meetings, and the Finnish National Brotherhood
Temperance Association had a membership of over 10,000 in 1904.
In recent years the temperance movement has lost force. The revoca-
2 The follo^yiIlg information is based on several articles written by John Wargelin
and odiers for The Daily Mining Gazette^ Houghton and Calumet, September 5, 1956,
2o6 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
tion of the Eighteenth Amendment has deprived the temperance or-
ganizations of their chief purpose, and in the process of Americaniza-
tion many of their entertainment activities have disappeared.
A number of secret societies and fraternal organizations have also
been formed. Toward the close of the nineteenth century the
Knights of Kaleva were organized in Montana, and their auxiliary
organization of the Ladies of Kaleva appeared shortly afterward.
These societies are in the main social and educational in purpose and
aim at maintaining the unity of the Finnish-speaking people. Their
membership is restricted to persons of Finnish extraction. The only
benefit society of importance operates in the western states, having
its headquarters in San Francisco. The socialist societies work inde-
pendently of other Finnish societies and in conjunction with other
American labor organizations.
The press. The first Finnish newspaper in the United States was
founded on April 14, 1876, by A. J. Muikku, a student from Finland,
and was called Anierikan Suomalainen Lehti (The Finnish Newspaper
of America). In all, only eleven numbers were printed. Since then
about a hundred other periodicals have appeared, but few of them
have survived long.
A number of Finnish newspapers serve to promote Finnish national-
ism, and these adopt a friendly attitude toward the church organiza-
tions of the American Finns. Such are the New Yorkin Uutiset
(New York News), which is published three times a week; the daily
Paivalehti, published in Duluth, Minnesota; the American Sanomat
(Tidmgs of America)^ a weekly with Republican sympathies, pub-
lished at Fairport Harbor, Ohio; and the Minnesotan Uutiset ( Minne-
sota News), of New York Mills, Minnesota, a biweekly. Also, many
periodicals of a religious nature are published in Finnish.
The Tyomies (Working Man), a socialist daily, is issued by the
Tyomies Publishing Company at Superior, Wisconsin. Another
daily, the Industrialisti of Duluth, is controlled by the International
Workers (Finnish Group). The Raivaaja (Pioneer), a radical daily,
is published by the Finnish supporters of the Workers Labor Party
at Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The socialist publishing companies also
issue yearbooks and various kinds of pamphlets.
Assimilation. English is an especially ifiicult language for Finns
to master, and this has been an obstacle to their Americanization.
Nevertheless, they have not been slow in becoming naturalized. In
1940, the United States census showed that 60.8 per cent of the
foreign-bom Finnish men had become naturalized and 16 per cent
FINNISH AMERICANS
207
had taken out their first papers; of the foreign-born women, 52.6 per
cent had been naturahzed and 5 per cent had their first papers.
The absorption of Finns into the American environment has been
favored by the tendency of immigrants to move out from the bounds
of their settlements. The homogeneity of racial groups is disappear-
ing, and the cessation of immigration has made the loosening of many
ties with Europe inevitable. Consequently, there has been a disposi-
tion to promote the assimilative process. Many Finns of the second
generation are intermarrying with members of other American groups,
and the American-bom children of foreign-bom Finns often look
with disfavor upon everything Finnish. They openly resist Finnish
customs and traditions, fail to participate in immigrant institutions, and
lose command of the Finnish language. Finnish Christian names are
changed to their American equivalents — Toivo to Tovi, Tyyne to
Mary — and surnames often suffer the same fate, as in the change from
Koivumake to Hill. In the process of learning to speak Enghsh, the
immigrants have given Finnish forms to English words, creating a
kind of Finnish American. Dr, Kolehmainen has provided us with
data on such Finnish- American words.® For example, the Finnish
word for apples is omenia, the Finnish-American form is apylia. So
farmer (maanviljelia in Finnish) is farmari; house (talo) is haussi; and
bedroo 7 jt (makuuhuone) is petiruuma. The spread of the Enghsh
language is apparent in the church. English is coming increasingly
into use in Sunday Schools, confirmation classes, and young people’s
work, as well as in church services.
Politically most of the Finns are members of the socialist, tem-
perance, or progressive parties, although the more Americanized
Finns tend more and more to be ahgned with the traditional Re-
publican or Democratic organizations. Professor Van Cleef traces
the reason for their “leftist” tendencies — ^not long ago more than 25
per cent of the Finnish immigrants were estimated to be sociahsts —
to the days of Russian oppression. Many of them emigrated during
that period and were filled with bitterness against established order
of all lands.
Finnish Americans and World War II. In 1939? *^he Finns were
heroes in the eyes of the American pubhc. When Russia attacked
Finland, most Finnish Americans — ^with the exception of the few
communists — ^identified themselves with the cause, which was also
popular with the American public. Although in the subsequent
3 John I. Kolehmainen, “The Finnicisation of English in America,” American
Sociological Review, February, 1937, pp. 62-66.
2o8 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
years, Finns fought the same foe as in 1939-1940 — that is,i the Rus-
sians — the somersaults of international trends placed the Finns on
the wrong side of America’s interests. Russia had changed allegiance
from Hitler to the United Nations, and thus Finland had become
America’s indirect enemy. And thus, also, the Finnish Americans,
while professing their love for America, could not, at the same time,
give up their love for their country’s cause. “The whole situation
is a puzzle, if not a headache, to the State Department and the Amer-
ican public in general. How much more of a puzzle and much deeper
a pain it is to the leaders of the loyal, democratic Finnish Americans
and the editors of their newspapers!” *
Contributions to American Life
Although the number of Finns in America is not very large, their
influence has been outstanding in the developirient of the country,
especially in their capacity of pioneers and frontiersmen; it has been
estimated that Finns have brought a million acres of land under culti-
vation.
It is not generally known that a Finn made the first scientific study
of the plants and animals of what is now the United States. He was
Pehr Kahn, professor of economics and natural history in the Univer-
sity of Abo, and one of the foremost scientists of northern Europe.
Kalm landed in Philadelphia on September 15, 1738, and for two-and-
a-half years traveled through the territory that now forms the states
of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. On his return, he
carried back with him to Linnaeus, whose pupil he was, a large collec-
tion of plants, seeds, and insects. In 1751 he published an account of
his studies entitled En resa till Norra Amerika ( A Journey to North
America), which was subsequently translated into English, German,
Dutch, and French. He was the first European scientist to describe
Niagara Falls.
Of the Finns who have traveled to America in recent years, the
best known are Sibelius and Saarinen, one of the greatest composers
and one of the greatest architects of our time. Sibelius’s reputation
stands particularly high in the United States. In 1914 he came to
America to conduct the premier of a symphonic poem composed for
4 Yaroslav J. Chyz, “The War and the Foreign-Language Press,” Common Ground,
III (Spring, 1943), pp. 3-10. For a moderate point of view of an American
Finn, see John Saari, “Finnish Nationalism Justifying Independence,” in Joseph S.
Roucek, Ed., The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science,
232 (March, 1944), pp. 33-3^^
AUSTRIAN AMERICANS
209
the Norfolk, Connecticut, Musical Festival and received the honorary
degree of Doctor of Music from Yale University. The performance
of his “Second Symphony” by the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie
Hall on March 10, 1937, led the music critic of The New York Times
to write in most eulogistic terms of this great work. Gottlieb Eliel
Saarinen came to the United States in 1923 after gaining second place
in the international contest for the design of the Chicago Tribune
building. For a year he occupied the chair of architecture at the
University of Michigan, having been invited there by Professor Emil
Larch as a lecturer on design. Later he was employed by the Detroit
Chapter of the American Institute of Architects to make a study of the
river-front project. As architect of the railway stations in Helsinki
and Viipuri and of the city halls in Lahti and Joensuu, Saarinen
acquired an international reputation which was furthered by his plans
for Sofia and other cities in Europe, the United States, and Australia.
A number of other Finns are prominent in American life. Alfred
J. E. Norton, head of the Norton Construction Company of New
York, is of Finnish birth. Oscar J. Larson was elected to the House
of Representatives in 1920, and several other men of Finnish descent
have served in the state legislatures of Michigan, Minnesota, and other
states. When James A. Farley, the Democratic national chairman,
a week before the presidential election of 1936 took place, correctly
predicted that his candidate. President Roosevelt, would be returned
by forty-six states, his forecast was based on the graphs and tables
of his assistant, Emil Hurja. The son of a Finnish immigrant, Hurja
began his career as a gold miner in Alaska, later worked for a news-
paper, and finally became a financial analyst. Dr. John Wargelin,
the second president of Suomi College, was bom in Isokyro on
September 26, 1881. Thorsten V. Kahjarvi was in 1944 executive
director of the New Hampshire State Planning and Development
Commission, on leave of absence from the University of New
Hampshire as the head of the department of government.
E. AUSTRIAN AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
That Austria-Hungary was one of the large sources of recent immi-
grants to the United States must not obscure the fact that the state
of Austria, established at Versailles, was only a minor part of the
former great empire. Classification of immigration before 1914
from the Austrian Empire cannot be accepted as accurate from the
210 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
standpoint of the immigrant groups that, after World War I, formed
their own independent states — Czechoslovaks, Hungarians, Poles,
Rumanians, and Yugoslavs, as well as Russians and Jews.
Historically speaking, the immigration from Austria was unim-
portant until the middle of the nineteenth century. The sudden
increase after 1848 was caused by the revolution of 1848 and the
interest of the Czechs in the gold discoveries in California. Gradually
other national groups of the empire were drafted into the immigration
exodus, and at the beginning of the i88o’s Austria was an important
country in our immigration statistics. Although political dissatisfac-
tion was a principal factor at the beginning, especially among the
Czechs, the economic reasons became dominant in the later phase
of the migration.^ Following World War I, Austria was reduced to
one eighth of its former size. The tabulation prepared by the Bureau
of Immigration gives a total of 39,400 immigrants from Austria during
the years 1920-1936 inclusive.
Austria and World War II. Austria was the first country swal-
lowed by Hitler’s steam roller (1939), and a considerable number of
Austrians took refuge on America’s soil, hoping either for the restora-
tion of their country’s independence ® or for the restoration of the
Habsburg Monarchy under the self-appointed claimant to this throne,
“Otto of Austria.” ® In fact, Otto’s elforts on behalf of his claims
had all the elements of musical comedy. Secretary of War Stimson,
in a letter addressed to “Otto of Austria,” indicated that the govern-
ment favored a restoration of the Habsburg Monarchy which was
buried in 1918, although, in Lord Bryce’s words of the Holy Roman
Empire, “its ghost sits crowned on the grave thereof.” Otto spoke of
10,000,000 Americans of Austrian birth, which could only have in-
cluded Yugoslavs, Czechs, and others who were glad to build their
states on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. When
the War Department allowed Otto to organize a special “Austrian”
legion, and when Otto, in his various lectures throughout the country,
actually spoke of himself as emperor of the Croats, Slovenes, Czecho-
slovaks, and Hungarians, who had in 1918 gained their national free-
dom, a storm of protest broke loose in the United States. Partic-
iFor a more detailed description of immigration data from Austria, see Maurice
R. Davie, World Immigration, pp. 116-122. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1936.
2 Cf. Ferdinand Czemin, “Austria’s Position in Reconstructed Europe,” pp. 71-76,
in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 232 (March,
1944), “A Challenge to Peacemakers.”
3 Cf. Joseph S. Roucek, “The ‘Free Movements’ of Horthy’s Eckhardt and Aus-
tria’s Otto,” The Public Opinion Quarterly, VII (Fall, 1943), pp. 466-476.
AUSTRIAN AMERICANS
21 I
ularly indignant were the governments-in-exile of Poland, Czecho-
slovakia, and Yugoslavia. The War and State departments had to
disavow any notion of restoring the Habsburg dynasty, and Otto
finally had to admit that not many Americans of Austrian descent
were willing to join his “Legion.” The project had to be given up.
The final doom to the Archduke’s dream to regain the throne of
, D
Austna was sealed by the conference of American, British, and Soviet
foreign ministers in Moscow in their declaration on Austrian inde-
pendence.
Thereafter (1944), the Austrian Monarchists initiated a new line
of activity in Washington, conducting propaganda to the end that
they be appointed official “advisers” in Austrian affairs for the State
Department. The “Military Committee for the Liberation of Aus-
tria,” whose president was the “Emperor” himself, transformed itself
into an “Austrian Institute.”
Contributions to American Life
Despite Austria’s small size, its contributions to America have been
significant. Our music lovers still listen with rapture to the Viennese
Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, and Fritz Kreisler. Both the late
Madame Schumann-Heink, a beloved singer of America, and Madame
Maria Jeritza, who made her fame as a member of the Viennese
Imperial Opera Company and of the Metropolitan Opera Company
of New York, were Austrians, although both were born on what is
now the Czechoslovak territory. The great theater painter, the late
Joseph Urban, came to America from Austria. Erich von Stroheim,
a motion picture director and star, has made himself immortal with
his directorial genius, which influenced the early development of
Hollywood production. Luise Rainer, dark-haired Viennese actress,
won twice the renowned “Oscar” award conferred by the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Max Reinhardt, who began his
career as an amateur actor in a Viennese theater, was one of the
leaders during the twenties in the search to achieve the supreme possi-
bilities of the modem theater. Bom in Vienna, and long a vigorous
anti-Nazi, Paul Henreid made his way eventually to the Warner
Brothers studio during World War II and was featured with such great
stars as Ida Lupino, Bette Davis, and others.
The late Dr. Gustav Lindenthal was a distinguished and famous
American bridge builder and scientist. Professor Karl Landsteiner,
formerly of the University of Vienna and then with the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, was awarded the Nobel Prize for
212
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
Medicine in 1930. Professor Walter Consnelo Langsam is one of
the best-known American historians. In the field of business are the
names of Edward C. Blum, president of both the Abraham and Strauss
store and the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and Ralph Hitz,
president of the Hotel New Yorker. Franklin Fischer, president of
the Fischer Exhibits, Inc., has won countless blue-ribbon prizes for his
now heralded technique of treating bakelite. One of the most famed
lawyers, whose influence on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration
was considerable, is Professor Felix Frankfurter. Bom in Vienna,
he came to the United States in 1894, and after being professor in the
Harvard Law School became a Supreme Court judge of the United
States.
The psychiatric school, founded by the Austrian neurologist
Sigmund Freud, has had a marked influence on American psychology
and sociology. Dr. Alfred Adler (who died in 1937), author of such
works as Understanding Hwnan Nature and Problems of Neurosis,
was professor of medical psychology in the Long Island Medical
College. Dr, Dorian Feigenbauip, a founder of The Psychoanalytic
Quarterly, was a friend of Dr, Sigmund Freud and an instructor in
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.
Erich von Hornbostel, a leading Gestalt psychologist, became a mem-
ber of the University in Exile in New York.
Karl Theodore Francis Bitter (1867-1915) landed in New York
at twenty-two years of age with scarcely a penny in his pocket and,
before three years had passed, was directing the colossal scheme of
sculpture upon the Administration Building of the World’s Fair at
Chicago in 1893. Before his death, at the age of 48, he had been
director of sculpture at three expositions, a member of the Art Com-
mission of New York City, and twice president of the National
Sculpture Society (1906, 1914)/
In more recent years, we all have heard of Bruno Walter (con-
ductor), Hedy Lamarr (motion picture actress) and Walter Slezak
(character actor of Hollywood), Bruno Frank and Ernst Lothar
(authors), Professor Felix Ehrenhaft, Professor Herman Marck (with
Du Pont), Professor Langsteiner, Dr. Schwarzkopf, Professor Hans
Kelsen (one of the great names in the field of political science and
law), and Dr. Otto Benesch (professor of art history at Harvard
University) .
^See Adeline Adams, “Karl Theodore Francis Bitter,” Dictionary of American
Biography y VoL II, pp. 303-305; F. Scheviil, Karl Bitter, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1917.
HUNGARIAN AMERICANS
213
F. HUNGARIAN AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
Hungarians are not “new” immigrants, as is commonly supposed,
but have been coming to the United States for centuries. Some claim
that a Magyar visited North America nearly five hundred years before
Columbus.’- Scattered records exist of the activities of Hungarians
in the United States throughout the colonial period and the first half
of the eighteenth century, and it is certain that Hungarians played a
more important part in America’s Revolutionary and Civil wars than
is generally known. One of George Washington’s officers was the
distinguished Hungarian, Colonel Michael Kovats. About eight
hundred Hungarians served in the Union Army, of whom sixty to
eighty were officers. The decided increase in the number arriving
in the thirties and forties of the nineteenth century can be accounted
for in part by the publication in Hungary in 1 834 of a record of obser-
vations on America by Alexander Farkas de Boloni.^
The Hungarian Revolution of 1 848, which aroused great sympathy
among the American people and in official circles, provided a further
impetus to the immigration of exiled Hungarians. The first to seek
haven in America was, it is said, Laszlo Ujhazy,® who arrived in New
York on December 1 6, 1 849, with his family and several friends. His
group settled in southern Iowa, acquired some 10,000 acres of land,
and gradually attracted other colonists until New Buda, named after
Hungary’s capital, was founded. The colony has been long entirely
extinct.
When Louis Kossuth arrived in New York in the autumn of 1851,
he received a hearty welcome that was repeated in aU the cities that he
visited; and the United States Congress, at the recommendation of
the Ohio state legislature, passed a resolution offering him and his
1 The Tyrker, or Turk, who according to the Icelandic saga discovered grapes at
Vinland about the year looo a.d., might have been a Hungarian, although most of
the later translators of and commentators on the Heimskingla take Tyrker to have
been German. See J. Pivany, Hungarians in the American Civil War, p. 3, and
Hungarian- American Historical Collections.
2 Alexander Farkas de Boloni came to the new world in 1831 in the company of
Count Ferenc Beldy. In Pittsburgh he met two other prominent Hungarians, Baron
Farkas Wesselenyi and Paul Balogh, in whose company he was received by President
Jackson. They were the first Hungarians entertained at the White House.
3 Ujhazy has the distinction of possessing the first citizenship papers of the United
States. He also became a postmaster and is considered the first Hungarian in the
public service of the United States. In 1861 he was appointed United States consul
at Ancona by President Lincoln.
214 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
group the use of a vessel and free land on which to settle. Those who
had followed him in exile from Hungary eventually joined him in
the United States, as did others later who had first found refuge in
Turkey, Italy, France, and England. Immigrants for political reasons,
they were almost exclusively of the middle or upper classes, who
hoped to be able, in a few years, to return to their native land. It
was not long, however, before most of them had found permanent
occupation here and were scattered throughout the United States.
After the spurt induced by the Hungarian Revolution had spent
itself, immigration continued on a smaller scale. In 1867 a number
of the immigrants returned to Hungary, taking advantage of a poht-
ical amnesty following the re-estabhshment of constitutional govern-
ment in their homeland.
In the eighties, Hungarians began to come to America in much
larger numbers, drawn by the usual hope of a better livelihood in
this vast new country. Those who were already here urged friends
to join them in this America which offered such bright promise of a
better order of things. Thus, in the latter part of the eighties, there
were approximately 100,000 Hungarians in the United States, whereas
in i860, according to Pivany’s estimate, there had been some 4,000.
From 1883 to 1903, the average annual accession was 30,000; 1907
was the peak year, when 60,071 were admitted.
The majority of these were Slavs, but Magyars began coming in
1899 until, by 1910, according to United States official statistics, there
were 338,151 Hungarians in this country. Of this number, 227,742
persons in the 1910 census gave Magyar as their mother tongue.
Doubtless, all of these were not Magyar, inasmuch as all other minority
nationalities of Hungary probably not only specified Hungary as
their country of origin but Magyar as their language — a customary
thing in that part of the world.
The 1940 census shows a total of 453,000 who gave Magyar as their
mother tongue, and of this number, 241,220 were foreign bom.
Many Hungarians have returned home. Of the total Magyars in
the United States, 30,034 of whom were admitted from 1920-1924,
33,460 departed (a loss of 3,426); from 1925-1929, 5,464 arrived
and 4,883 left (a gain of 581); from 1930-1940 emigration practically
equaled immigration, an average of approximately 500 a year.
Before 1915, there were about three times as many Hungarian men
as women in the United States. Wives and children were frequently
left at home and the men came with the intention of staying just long
enough to make enough money to pay off the mortgage on their land.
HUNGARIAN AMERICANS
215
or to buy a little property, or to build a modest home on their farm.
It frequently happened, however, that, on the return to their home-
land, the lure of America was stiU so strong that they followed it
once more and brought their families as well. The census of 1910
enumerated 160.8 Magyar men to 100 women, but in 1920 there were
120.5 males per 100 females, and the proportion had been reduced
by 1940 to 1 01. 5 males per 100 females. The very recent tendency
for whole famihes to remain here permanently is reflected in the
speed with which the immigrants are being assimilated. In 1910,
when most expected that their residence would be temporary, only
15 per cent of the Magyars were naturalized. In 1920, 21. i per cent
had become American citizens, and by 1940, 64.3 per cent had sworn
allegiance to the United States.
The total number of persons bom in Hungary, plus their native-
born children now in this country, is difficult to determine. Offi-
cially, there were 662,068 in 1940. On the other hand, experts who
have made a careful study of Magyar settlements estimate that there
are only from 300,000 to 400,000 Hungarians in the United States
today, includhag their children. One reason for the difficulty is that
the census now classifies immigrants accordmg to place of birth, so
that those who emigrated from territories formerly Hungarian, but
now under other sovereignties, are enumerated as Czechs, Yugoslavs,
or Roumanians, rather than as Hungarians.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Occupations. The occupations of Hungarians in the United States
are similar to those of any other group of citizens. Considerations of
membership in a nationality group probably have had little to do with
the choice of profession, which has been determined rather by the
social class to which the individual belonged or by his own natural
aptitudes and abilities. Magyar immigrants of the laboring classes
are to be found in greatest numbers in iron and steel manufacturing,
bituminous coal mining, the making of agricultural implements, silk
dyeing, and sugar refining. A considerable number have found
employment in the coal mines of West Virginia and Pennsylvania,
while viniculturists have been employed rather extensively by grape-
growers in Ohio and California. Some Hungarians have opened
restaurants and tailoring establishments and other shops. Others are
cabinet makers, tool makers, carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers,
wheelwrights, stone masons, locksmiths, painters, shoemakers, and
butchers.
2i6 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
While most are engaged in industry and trade, many have drifted
into agriculture to satisfy their thirst for land ownership. Budapest,
Georgia, a Hungarian farming community established after World
War I, does not exist any more; the same applies to Kossuthville
(Kossuthfalva) , Florida, near Winter Haven, which was an ambitious
plan during the prosperous years before 1929. Edmund Vasvary,
auditor of the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America, chartered
by the Congress in 1907, claims that “there is no exclusively Hun-
garian village or town anywhere. The nearest is Fairport Harbor,
Ohio, where the entire village consists of Hungarians and Finns, the
only place in the world where the two related nations live together.
Most of the Hungarian farmers live in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
Oklahoma.
Magyars in America differ from other eastern and central European
immigrant groups in that an unusually large number are of the intel-
ligentsia and professional classes. In the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, many of them were political exiles, as has already been
pointed out. After World War I, a large number of lawyers, physi-
cians, engineers, former state officials, and a variety of other repre-
sentatives of the middle class emigrated to America because of unsatis-
factory conditions in the defeated country.^ The permeation of
all walks of hfe in America by Hungarians tends to disintegrate the
prewar colonies of arrivals who, seeldng friends of the same nation-
ality, had congregated in specific sections of our cities and estabUshed
purely Hungarian settlements. Today there are few left. One such
settlement was Himlerville (now called Beauty), Kentucky, the only
all-Magyar mining town founded after World War I. Social distinc-
tions, furthermore, have in many cases created a barrier between the
professional class and the uneducated workingman. The divergent
points of view of the assimilated and of recent un-Americanized
arrivals also help to prevent the establishment of common purposes
and interests.
Religion. Although the Hungarian peasant is a devout church-
goer, retaining this inclination to a lesser degree in America, the
intelligentsia is prone to give up interest in organized religion.
Further, Hungarian clergymen, particularly the younger element,
frequently are at variance, often actually clashing with members of
their congregations.
^It is of interest that some years ago chemical engineers were brought from
Sarvar, Hungary, to Hopewell, Virginia, to participate in the prodnction gf artificial
silk.
HUNGARIAN AMERICANS
217
The American Reformed, Presbyterian, and Lutheran churches
early came into contact with Hungarian groups. At about the same
time that the Board of Home Missions of the Reformed Church in
the United States was directing its attention to the needs of Hun-
garians in the United States, missionaries were also being dispatched
from Hungary to establish centers of worship for their people here.
The first Hungarian congregation was organized by Reverend Gideon
Acs, an exiled Calvinist minister, in New York in 1852. The first
Hungarian church building was, however, erected in Pittsburgh in
1892 where a second missionary, the Reverend John Kovacs, had
been commissioned in 1891. Since 1900, there has been a definite
trend away from the Hungarian Reformed Church to the Hungarian
Reformed Church of America. A Hungarian department, the only
chair of its kind in America, at Franklin and Marshall College in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, supported by the Reformed Church, was
discontinued about 1936.
The Free Magyar Reformed Church in America was established
on December 9, 1924, at Duquesne, Pennsylvania. It is not exactly
a continuation of the former Hungarian Reformed Church in Amer-
ica, although it corresponds to it in faith, government, and so on, and
its constituency is made up to a certain degree from that of the
former church.
Professor Frank Kovach of the Bloomfield College and Seminary,
Bloomfield, New Jersey, estimates that since 1891 approximately 190
churches or mission centers have been established. He makes this
interesting comment: “Most of these churches are only a generation
old. Charter members are still to be found in every one of them.
Their membership, however, divides them into two distinct groups
— ^the older and the newer generation. Roughly, the older generation
desires a worship and work of the church as it was in the old country,
while the younger is eager to be American both in worship and life.”
Survival of “old-world” patterns. The Hungrian-American neigh-
borhood stiU has many of the characteristics of the small peasant vil-
lage. The two strongest bonds of this type are the Sogorak and the
Komak.^ The former term refers to certain affinal relatives, such as
an in-law; the latter, to godparents. Sogor is a very friendly term, and
a good friend may be addressed as Sogor out of courtesy. A Koma
is a godfather, and the Komak is a reciprocal relationship between the
parents and godparents of a child. Those who stand in the Komak
6 Natalie Joffe, Hungarian Food Fattems, Washington, D. C.: The Conmiittee of
Food Habits, National Research Council, 1943,
2i8 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
relationship may form a group of some size, as there are separate god-
parents for each child. All those who stand in the Sogorak and
Komak relationship must be invited to attend baptisms, weddings,
name-day feasts, and funerals. Elaborate seating arrangements, a
definite order in which names must be recited, and other traditional
forms are always observed. The force of these ties often carries
well into the third generation.
Food folkways are very important in Hungary, where elaborate
food symbolism had grown up around calendar events and critical
periods in the life of the individual. Little of these remain in the
life of Hungarian Americans, who have largely given up their practice
of eating frequent meals; instead they conform to the American meal
schedules. But there has been little alteration in the diet of those born
in Hungary. Only one example can be given: white rolls, which
were formerly an urban or hohday food, can be had in every corner
store; but they have by no means replaced sour rye bread.
Organizations. Above the family relations and ties are those of the
organizational alEliations. Many of the organizations, particularly
the mutual-benefit societies, were begun prior to 1900 when most
of the Hungarians in America were single men between the ages of
20 and 35. Those who were married kept boarding houses where
the bachelors Hved. Lonely, and dreading sickness and a pauper’s
burial in a strange land, the residents of several boarding houses often
clubbed together to put up money as sickness or death insurance. In
time, some of the groups expanded into large benefit societies.®
The formal organizational ties of the societies are the strongest
associational bonds in Hungarian-American life. These societies act
as a cohesive force. Even churches and political groups use the
society mechanism to hold their members together, and to this end
they support numerous subsidiary societies. In addition to the sick
benefit and insurance orders there are social clubs, singing and
dramatic groups, athletic societies, and the hke. A good many
societies have been organized for sick benefits, funeral expenses,
insurance, or some other philanthropic purpose; others are directly
connected with churches or are branches of local or larger national
organizations. The Verhovay (Aid Association) of Pittsburgh, with
a membership of 32,000, is the largest Hungarian sick-benefit and
insurance organization in this country; next in size is the American
Federation of Hungarian Sick Benefit Societies at Bridgeport, Con-
® Andrew A, Marchbin, “Hungarian Activides in Western Pennsylvania,” Western
Penmylvania Historical Magazine , XXIII (1940), p. 165.
HUNGARIAN AMERICANS
219
necticut. The Hungarian Reformed Federation is also a large insur-
ance and funeral-expense society and is the only Hungarian organiza-
tion that has a national charter, granted by the United States Congress,
and its headquarters in its own building in the national capital.
The impact of World War 11 . The fortunes of World War II,
which placed Hungary on the side of Nazi Germany, produced con-
fusion in the minds of all classes of Hungarian Americans. Immedi-
ately after World War I, there were no Hungarian- American picnics
or social gatherings without a period being devoted to the reiteration
of the need for treaty revisionism. Budapest propaganda saw to it
that these people believed that the postwar treaties — and particularly
the so-called Trianon Treaty — were unjust to Hungary.
But the matter became complicated when America joined World
War II. Hungary, more than any other country in Europe, had
benefited by Hitler’s “New Order.” Its territorial aggrandizements
were reahzed to the disadvantage of two members of the United
Nations — Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Its armies, furthermore,
fought Russia beside Hitler’s armies, and in addition Budapest declared
war on Great Britain and the United States.
By 1943, however, Budapest, aware that the Allies would not con-
firm the grants of Hitler and Mussolini, tried its utmost to secure its
territorial gains. Its propaganda adopted the line of self-preservation:
Hungary had been compelled to yield to Germany because its open
frontiers and poorly equipped army could not have resisted the
onslaught of Nazi aggression. The impression was created that
Horthy’s clique had always been secretly pro-British and democratic.’'
This was all rather confusing to the Hungarian Americans, as is
illustrated by the American-Hungarian Federation, which represents
some 600,000 Hungarian Americans. Anti-Nazi, it was at the same
time “revisionist” — that is, it favored claiming all the territories
Horthy had occupied as accessory to Hitler. As the representative
of the three greatest and oldest Hungarian societies, numbering about
100,000 members and about 100 religious communities, it held a
convention in Pittsburgh on November 27, 1941. When it came to
a showdown between Nazis and anti-Nazis at the convention, the
majority decided in favor of wholehearted acceptance of the official
Rustem Vambery, The Himgarttm Problem. New York: The Nation, 1942;
Joseph S. Roucek, “The ‘Free Movements’ of Horthy’s Eckhardt and Austria’s
Otto,” Public Opinion Quarterly, VII (Fall, 1943), pp. Roucek, “Foreign
Language Press in World War II,” Sociology and Social Research, XXVII (July-
August, 1943), pp. 462-471.
220 ‘‘NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
policy of the American government. But, again paradoxically
enough, this same federation sponsored the strange “Free Hungary
movement of Tibor Eckhardt, whose visit to the United States in
1941 created a furor among the prodemocratic and pro-Allied forces
in the United States, and who earned for himself such names as the
“Hungarian Hess” and “the first of Horthy’s paratroops in America.”
The same confusion of conflicting aims and hopes was exhibited
by the Hungarian- American Press. The Hungarian Egyetertes^ P^^“
lished in Bridgeport, Connecticut, had supported, before Pearl Harbor,
the pro-Axis regime in Budapest. W^hen the United States declared
war on Hungary in the spring of 1942, Egyetertes ran a perfunctory
editorial urging its readers to help the American war effort. In
another column on the same page it remarked, however, that the
situation is no different from before, except that unnaturalized Hun-
garians must be more careful of what they say.”
The press. The first Hungarian journal published in the United
States was the Magyar Szamwzottek Lapja (Bulletin of the Hun-
garian Exiles) j founded in 1853 by Hungarian exiles. It had 118
subscribers. The first regular Hungarian newspaper was the Magy ar-
American^ edited by William Loew and Arcadius Avelbanus. The
first issue appeared in New York City on June 1 5, 1879, although
the publication was soon discontinued, it gave impetus to the founda-
tion of other Hungarian newspapers. The Magy ar-Amerika was a
literary magazine. The first Hungarian-American newspaper really
devoted to Hungarian-American life was started in 1884 with the
establishment of the Amerikai Magyar-Nemzetor (American Guardian
of the Nation}^ edited by Gustav Erdelyi. In 1891 the Szabadsag
(Liberty) was published in Cleveland as a weekly by Tihamer
Kohanyi; it became a daily in 1900. The largest Hungarian news-
paper in America, the Amerikai Magyar Nepszam (Peoples^ Voice),
published by Geza Berko, started as a weekly in New York in 1900
and became a daily four years later. Today it has four editions —
New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and a general edition. Several
other daily newspapers were started but did not survive. In all, from
1884 to 1920, sixty-seven Magyar newspapers were started and forty-
one expired. Some twenty-five appear regularly today; their edi-
torial policies reflect the groups they represent.
Contributions to American Life
Hungarians have made a distinct contribution to the upbuilding
of America. Coming from their native country in search of Hbei^
HUNGARIAN AMERICANS 221
and wealth, they brought treasures of their own. They brought with
them health and strong and rugged bodies to enable them to play a
real part in the material development of this new land; to take their
place in America’s great army of industrial workers who, by their
sweat and labor, paid with their blood for the comfort and higher
standard of living attained in this country.
Aside from this cumulative contribution of the working man, many
Hungarian Americans have achieved wide fame in the purely cultural
field. Reverend Charles E. Schaeffer eloquently reminds us that^
a Hungarian [Colonel Kovats] was a cavalry drillmaster of . . . Wash-
ington. A Hungarian [Augustine Maraszthy] planted the first . . . tokay
grapes in California. Another [John Xantus] enriched the Smithsonian
Institute with unknown species of plants and animals. He was elected
an honorary member of three great American scientific societies. In
Wanamaker’s store in Philadelphia hang two great paintings of “Christ
before Pilate” and “Christ on Golgotha,” the work of Munkacsy. His
“Milton’s Paradise Lost” hangs in the 42nd Street Library, New York
City. A year ago the Ladies^ Home Journal published an article in which
reference was made to the fact that every year 7,000 American mothers
die of childbirth fever, but 85 years ago, a Hungarian, Semmelweis,
showed how this tragic occurrence can be totally prevented. It is not
generally known that the builder of the first skyscraper in New York was
a Hungarian. From an onion-growing town of Hungary there came to
America a boy who was so poor that his first bed was a bench in the
park. On a cold winter night, he entered a hotel to get warmed in the
lobby. He was thrown out. Twenty years later this same boy paid
$635,000 for this same hotel, and afterwards bought the newspaper, the
World, for $340,000. With his own hands he traced the blueprints of
the World building, which he never saw, for he was smitten with total
blindness early in his career. But he became the newspaper king of the
metropolis, Joseph Pulitzer. I mention these facts, and they could be
multiplied by the score, to show that the Hungarians in America are by
no means an inferior class, and they deserve to be regarded as an asset
rather than a liability.
* Abundant testimony of the preceding statement could be given by
calling the roll of leading Hungarians in the United States. There
are fifty-six university and college professors in America who are
Hungarians or of Hungarian descent. In the theater are many famous
names, and three pioneers of the motion-picture industry are Adolph
Zukor,® William Fox, and Marcus Loew. Others could be called
sThe Reverend C. E. Schaeffer, “Perspective in Evangelical Hungarian Work,”
Home Missions Council (105 East 22nd Street, New York, 1935), Annual Report
19 S 4 - 19 SS} PP- 3 S“ 39 *
9 See Will Irwin, The House That Shado'ws Built, p. 8. Garden City, N. Y.:
Doubleday, Dotan, 1928.
222
“NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
from business, the professions, and the arts. In the arts, only the
field of music and of the motion pictures can be presented.
The Magyar Americans have produced more than their share of
successful composers. Victor Jacobi composed “Marriage Market,”
“Sybill,” “Rambler Rose,” “Riveria Girl,” “Apple-blossoms,” and so
on. Armand Vecsey wrote “Rose of China,” “Hotel Mouse,” and
“The Nightingale.” Karoly Hajos and Sigmond Romberg are the
composers of “May Time,” “Magic Melody,” “Student Prince,” and
“Song of the Desert.” Dr. Eugene Ormandy, conductor of the
Minneapolis Philharmonic Orchestra, has now become the successor
to Leopold Stokowski as conductor of the famous Philadelphia Phil-
harmonic Orchestra. Erno Rapee is music director of the Radio City
Music Hall in New York City. Fritz Reiner is conductor of the
Cincinnati and of the Philadelphia orchestras. Fritz Reiner and
Edward Kdlenyi are leaders in the field of orchestral music. Sandor
Harmati, who died in 1936, won the Pulitzer prize in music in 1922
for his “Symphony Poem” and conducted many famous orchestras,
both in America and abroad. Josef Honti, Hungarian pianist, is
one of the three staff directors of music for the National Broadcasting
Company of New York. During the 1943-1944 season, one of
Broadway’s great hits was the streamhned revival of “The Merry
Widow,” which starred Jan Kdepura and Marta Eggerth (Mrs.
Edepura), the latter a native of Hungary, who had appeared in
German, British, and American films.
In 1943, Paul Lukas was selected by a committee of the National
Board of Review of Motion Pictures for outstanding acting in the
motion picture, “Watch on the Rhine,” a role he originated on the
stage. As Pal Lukacs, a native of Hungary, he made his fame on the
Hungarian stage, was invited to Hollywood by Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer, and has become one of America’s most popular actors on the
stage as well as on the screen. Ferenc Molnar’s plays have always
been represented on Broadway. The Hungarian Roth Quartet gave
in 1943 an all-American program of chamber music in the Museum of
Modem Art in New York under the auspices of the National Asso-
ciation for American Composers and Conductors. Sir Alexander
Korda’s brother, Zoltan Korda, followed in his brother’s footsteps as
a great film producer by signing in 1943 a new producer-director
contract with Columbia. Joe Pasternak and Henry Koster made
themselves famous as film producers and directors.
Dr. Emil Lengyel, assistant professor at New York University, is
well known throughout the country as a lecturer and author of such
RUMANIAN AMERICANS
223
works as The Danube^ Siberia, and numerous others. Dr. Joseph
Remenyi, professor of comparative literature in Western Reserve
University, and radio lecturer of Cleveland College, Western Reserve
University, is the author of some seventeen books. Dr. Franz
Alexander was invited in 1932 to become director of the Chicago
Instimte for Psychoanalysis and has devoted most of his time to the
study of the influence of emotional factors upon bodily disturbances.
The results have been incorporated in his book. Our Age of Unreason.
A Hungarian-bom emigre joumahst, Stefan Lorant, published in 1941
Lincoln: His Life in Pictures, considered “the best sequence of Lincoln
photographs ever issued in book form.” Lorant was also author of
the best-selling I Was HitlePs Prisoner, which British editor Wickham
Steed said would outlast the Third Reich. Tibor Koeves, Hungarian-
born author, whose first American book, on the delights of travel, was
Timetable for Tramps, made another hit with a biography of Franz
von Papen, published as Satan in a Top Hat.
G. RUMANIAN AMERICANS
Francis J. Brown
The name of these peoples is often spelled Romanians, which indi-
cates their presumed ethnic origin as descendants of an early Roman
settlement in central Europe. Whether or not this is their actual
origin, the term as used in this section refers to an ethnic group rather
than to those who lived within the shifting political boundaries of
Rumania (sometimes also spelled Roumania).
There is one serious difiiculty in using this connotation: statistics
on immigration are based on “country of origin.” In the vicissitudes
of European wars and politics, Rumania has at various times been
under the dominance of Russia, Turkey, Austria, Hungary, and
Bulgaria. It has varied in size like an accordion from 50,000 to
125,000 square miles, and provinces such as Transylvania and Bes-
sarabia have changed hands several times. Through it all, however,
the Rumanians have retained a high degree of cultural autonomy and
a deep sense of nationality.
Immigration
As was true of nearly all “new” immigrant groups, pioneers pre-
ceded the major migration. At least two of these won their place
in history because of their outstanding record in the Qvil War:
Captain Nicolae Dunca and General Gheorghe Pomutz. In 1944,
224 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
as a result of the activities of Rumanian Americans, a Liberty ship
was named for the latter. The real stream of emigrants from
Rumania did not begin, however, until late in the nineteenth century.
Only eleven arrived during the decade 1871 to 1880, and there were
but 19,109 before 1900. During the next decade 53,008 came, but the
number dropped back during the decade of World War I to 13,311.
The ten years immediately following brought 67,646, most of them
coming between 1921 and 1925. As in the case of all “new” immi-
grant groups — the quota immigration laws having based the number
of arrivals on the number in the United States and with each revision
having shifted the period further back — ^Rumania’s annual quota was
decreased and since 1935 has been 377 per year. The number of
arrivals from 1931 to 1940 was 3,871, and from 1941 to 1943 was
234. The total was 157,179.
If census figures are used (see Table VII, page 644) , the number
of white stock who give Rumania as “country of origin” is: 1910,
92,854; 1920, 167,399; 1930, 293,453; and 1940, 247,700. Of those of
1940. 1 1 5.940 were foreign born and another 103,060 had both parents
bom in Rumania. The percentage of foreign bom decreased from
61 per cent in 1910 to 47 per cent in 1940, but was still considerably
higher than the national average, 33 per cent.
All of the preceding data were derived, as such figures had to be,
from a political basis, that is, the fluctuating boundary fines of
Rumania. Therefore, although they are significant, they do not
reveal the ethnic groups to which the immigrants belonged. Ap-
proximately a third of the immigrants from Rumania were Jews, 20
per cent were Saxons, and 6 per cent were Magyars. This fact is
forcefully evidenced in the 1940 census data on mother tongue. Of
the more than 240,000 who gave Rumania as country of origin, only
65,520 fisted Rumanian as their mother tongue. Similarly, although
1 15.940 were foreign bom from political Rumania, but approximately
one third, or 43,120, spoke Rumanian.
If Rumanians are asked to indicate their number in the United
States, some will say as few as 35,000, and others will place the n um ber
even as high as between 400,000 and 500,000. The most reliable
figure, as was pointed out in Chapter II, is that based on the combina-
tion of nativity and mother tongue; for the Rumanians, then, it is
probably not much in excess of the census figure, 65,000. Even with
the addition of those of the third generation who lived in English-
speaking homes, the number is still under 100,000.
RUMANIAN AMERICANS
225
The number has been stressed, not, as it may appear, to lessen the
importance of this group, but to illustrate a fact that characterizes the
data on many other European groups from little Albania to the
U. S. S. R. — ^the difference between ethnic and political classification.
Regardless of the ethnic group, the causes of emigration to America
are the same as for those from many other countries: persecution, wars,
and low economic stams. The first resulted in bringing several thou-
sand refugees to America, and, in recent years, the larger proportion
of these have been Jews. The third gave America tens of thousands
of unskilled farm laborers, estimated at approximately 90 per cent
of the total.
, Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
By the time Rumanian immigration had reached significant num-
bers, the opportunity for those without a reserve of funds to enter into
farming had practically disappeared. There were opportunities to
earn a livelihood only in the cities. Keeping the 90 per cent figure
in mind, the 1940 census reveals a significant fact concerning all
Rumanian Americans: 88.5 per cent were urban, 5.9 per cent were
rural nonfarm, and 5.6 per cent lived on rural farms. The percentage
remains almost identical but is reversed. Men, accustomed for gen-
erations to the out-of-doors and varied and seasonal activities of
agriculture, were forced to adjust themselves to the monotonous
routine of work in the mill, the factory, or the mine.
The few who continued in farming and sheepherding are largely in
the states of New Jersey and Connecticut in the East, Ohio and the
Dakotas in the Middle West, and, in the Far West, Montana, Wyo-
ming, and California. Many have been extremely successful, al-
though even in agriculture few of the methods that were practiced
in the old world could be carried over to the new.
Those who sought the social cohesion and security of city life went
almost entirely to the large industrialized urban communities or to
the mining areas of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Table XI (page 646)
indicates this concentration, varying from 300 in Alliance, Ohio, to
40,655 in New York City. It is graphically shown in Figure 4.
Another problem of adjustment, common to several other national
groups, faced these new immigrants. Until World War I, approxi-
mately 90 per cent of those who came were single men. Family life
was impossible, a further factor in influencing the majority to seek
thei? livelihood m cities. Here they rented rooms in tho same bnild-
226 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
ing, often fifty or more in the same boarding house. Associating to-
gether retarded their acculturation, even their learning of the English
language.
Since 1918, this situation has changed rapidly. The wave of
immigration in the decade after World War I was composed chiefly
of women and children — the families of those who had preceded
them. Marriage outside of their own ethnic group came to be
accepted. Boarding-house existence was changed to family life.
The 1940 census gives the ratio of men to women as 108.4
(113.3 among foreign-bom Rumanians) to each 100 women. This
ratio is still higher than the national average of 103.3 but is in sharp
contrast to the 1910 ratio.
Another interesting situation among Rumanian Americans is that
although they are concentrated in the larger cities, there are com-
paratively few places in which Rumanian-speaking groups are pre-
dominant as compared with other ethnic groups from the old country.
These places are Canton, Warren, Youngstown, and Akron, Ohio;
East Chicago and Gary, Indiana; Dearborn, Highland Park, and
Detroit, Michigan; Newark and Trenton, New Jersey, and Aurora,
Illinois.
* From The Neiv Pioneer, 11, No. 2 (July 1944), p. 50. (Data from 1940 Census.)
RUMANIAN AMERICANS
227
It will be noted, too, that not one of the cities listed is in the South
or the Far West. By far the larger number of Rumanians live within
six states: New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, and
New Jersey. States having from 1,500 to 5,000 are California,
Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Mis^uri. Many of the
Rumanians in the latter group of states live in small villages or on
farms. (See Figure 4.)
Religion. The church has played a leading role among the
Rumanian people, both Jews and Gentiles. Among the Rumanian
ethnic group, approximately 70 per cent are Greek Orthodox, a little
more than 20 per cent are Greek Catholic, and the remainder are
scattered among Protestant groups, with a preponderance of Bap-
tists.
The Greek Orthodox Church has had an interesting social evolu-
tion. No trained clergy came with the first emigrants, and laymen
who could chant the Byzantine prayers were selected to serve in their
stead. It was not until 1923 that a group of eight priests came to
Cleveland to assist in the work of the thirty-one churches and thirty-
eight schools that had been already established through the earnest
efforts of those who found their religion a vital bond between their life
in the villages of Rumania and in the congested areas of industrialized
America. Since 1935, Reverend Policarp Morushea has worked to
coordinate their efforts, as Bishop and head of the Mission and the
Rumanian Orthodox Episcopate in America and in the western Euro-
pean countries. He has sought to make the church a culture-social
center and, in extending it to include benefits to the sick and the aged,
has reached into the field of activities of the benefit societies. It is
hoped that close cooperation will be maintained, as both the church
and the societies have developed through many years of struggle.
In contrast, the Greek Catholics have had an educated clergy from
the beginning, many of them holding college degrees. There are
eighteen churches and several parochial schools. The latter, with the
exception of a full-time primary grade school in Detroit, are more
like Protestant Sunday Schools. The Detroit school is conducted in
both EngHsh and Rumanian.
The American Baptist Home Mission Society has been an effective
agency among Rumanian Americans. Since 1910, sixteen Rumanian
Baptist churches have been established and as many Sunday Schools.
The membership is not large, approximately 1,000, but their influence
has been greater than the number would imply, as they have not only
assisted in keeping high the standards of conduct but have also inter-
228 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
preted American customs, folkways, and values. Through their
publication, Lummo-toral (The Light), they have kept in contact
■with other American Baptists and, through spiritual and social values
held in common, have eased the process of acculturation and assimila-
tion. A
Organizations. Although Rumanians Hve in urban areas, they do
not as a rule form small “culture islands.” There is no equivalent of
“Little Italy” in New York, “Little Poland” in Buffalo, or “China-
town” in San Francisco. In a single city there will be a number of
groups, often only of a few families, hving ia the same neighborhood.
This fact has markedly influenced the development of social and
fraternal organizations that thrive most readily in a homogeneous and
contiguous social group. Over the years, a number of local organ-
izations developed, but for the most part, their chief purpose was
mumal benefits: insurance for health and old age. In 1944 they were
organized into two groups: the Union and League of Rumanian
Societies, and the International Workers Order. The former had
approximately 5,000 members, the latter about 2,500.
More recently, other types of organizations have developed. The
National Rumanian Committee of Cleveland was organized for partic-
ipation in pohtical activities. The Legion of Rumanian Volunteers
sought to instill love of America in its youthful members. A new
organization, the Cultural Associations of Americans of Romanian
Descent, was estabhshed on October 13, 1940, in Cleveland and soon
attained a membership of nearly 1,000. October 8 has been estab-
lished as “Culture Day” for all Rumanian Americans. The letter of
call for the first meeting so completely embodies the aspiration of aU
new immigrant groups that it is quoted here. It was signed by
Theodore Andrica of Harvard University, who was elected the first
president of the association.
“The initiators of this letter strongly feel that there must be thousands
of persons of Romanian descent in the United States who would like to
associate with one another on a cultural level, leaving fraternal, political
and religious affiliations aside; men and women who are interested in in-
telligent and true Americanism but who stiU feel and appreciate the bonds
of common ancestry; persons who are willing to do something to help
Americans of Romanian descent advance to higher places in our American
life.”
The first general meeting of The Cultural Association was held on
Dec. I, 1940 in Cleveland when the Constitution and By Laws of the or-
ganization were adopted and officers were elected.
The purposes of the Association include the following points:
RUMANIAN AMERICANS
229
To help create among the American people the unity and understanding
resulting from a common citizenship, a common belief in democracy ana
the ideals of liberty, the placing of the common good before the interests
of any group and the acceptance, in fact as well as in law, of all American
citizens, whatever their national or racial origins, as equal partners in
American society.
To disseminate information and to further an appreciation of what
Americans of Romanian descent have contributed to the United States
of America.
To increase the respect and understanding of Americans of Romanian
descent and of the older stock of Americans for each other and to help
Americans of Romanian descent better understand their cultural and na-
tionality background.
To issue a periodical, in English, dealing with general cultural subjects
and with the various aspects of the Romanian background in relation to
life in the United States.
In general, to aid Americans of Romanian immigrant ancestry to ad-
vance higher in American life.
In this letter is embodied the twofold struggle; the desire to retain
the culture of the old world yet to use it as the basis for heightening
loyalty to the new world through easing the process of culture
adjustment; and, the effort to provide a channel through which old
and young may participate together in the feast days, the holidays
(Rumanian and American), the songs and dances of old and new
worlds, and thereby develop a common sense of values and of appre-
ciation — ^youth for the land of their parents, oldsters for the adopted
land that has set the cultural pattern of their children.
Effects of World War II. The conflicting pohtical interests in
Rumania inevitably have been reflected in the attitudes of Rumanian
Americans. Many were disillusioned when Rumania cast her lot
with the Nazis. Efforts were made to salvage the Rumanian cause
for the democratic forces. One group was represented by the
Ru manian American Alliance for Democracy, with headquarters in
Cleveland and Detroit, backed principally by the Union and League
of Rumanian Cultural and Beneficial Societies. It was under the
leadership of Carol Davilla, former Rumanian minister to Washington,
who, on being recalled from Washington during King Carol’s ruler-
ship, refused to return and thereafter became prominent in various
anti-Carol activities in the United States. The other movement was
“Free ' Rumania,” with headquarters in Detroit, whose principal
objective was to support the political aspirations of former King Carol
of Rumania. Its goal was opposed by the United States authorities,
for on November 17, 1942, the United States Department of Justice
230 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
announced the indictment by a Detroit federal grand jury of three
officials of the Free Rumania movement, who allegedly were not
registered as foreign agents while seeking to gain admittance of former
King Carol to the United States. Both the Alliance for Democracy
and the Free Rumania groups were bitterly assailing each other’s
motives through their official pubhcations. To obtain the aid of the
more “apathetic” Rumanians in their private quarrel, the pro-Carolists
called the anti-Carolists communists, and the anti-Carohsts alleged
that the pro-Carohsts were fascists.
Whatever will be the eventual fate of Rumania, the final settlement
will bring a lessening of the divisive influence and a re-estabhshment
of cultural values. In the meantime, basic behavior patterns have
been httle ajffected, and the unifying influence of active participation
of Rumanian Americans in the war effort has more than offset the
activities of internal factions reflecting old-world conflicts.
The press. Like the organizations, the press has sought to serve
the same twofold purpose: retention of interest in things Rumanian
and consequent strengthening of the sohdarity of the group, and,
assistance to Rumanian Americans in their adjustment to American
life. The publications that have been the most permanent and that
aspire to be national m scope include America., a Detroit weekly
pubhshed continuously for nearly forty years; Voia Poporului (The
People’s News) pubhshed in Cleveland and serving the interests of
the church and the fraternal organizations; Desteptarea (Awakening)
also pubhshed in Detroit, which speaks for the Rumanian Socialist
workers; Viata Nona (The New Life), which serves the American
bom of Rumanian descent and is bihngual; Solia (The Jerald), started
in 1935 and pubhshed by the Rumanian Orthodox Episcopate of
America; and The New Pioneer, a quarterly magazine begun in 1943
and pubhshed by the Cultural Association for Americans of Romanian
Descent. It is pubhshed in English and includes articles on the culture
and history of Rumania and of America with news notes on cultural
activities of, local and national Rumanian groups. The 1944 faU
number was a special issue giving the mihtary record of several
thousands of the Rumanian Americans who are serving in the armed
forces, and several other issues included pictures of sons and daughters,
many in service, of members of the organization.
Naturalization. One indication of the extent of cultural assimila-
tion is the percentage of ahens of a given country who have become
naturahzed citizens. For the Rumanians, this figure is 68.6 per cent,
4 per cent above the average for all the foreign-bom white population
RUxMANIAN AMERICANS
231
in the United States in 1940. Two factors account for this per-
centage: one, the assimilative process; the other, the return to the
homeland of some 43,000 Rumanians from 1910 to the outbreak of
World War II.
Contributions to American Life'^
The dedication of the original edition of this book is applicable
to the contributions of Rumanian Americans, for they have con-
tributed both through the “toil of their hands” in factories and shops
and mines and through the “genius of their minds” in every cultural
and intellectual field.
The Rumanian Americans have given a large number of outstanding
personalities to their country of adoption: Alma Gluck, of the Metro-
politan Opera Company; Konrad Bercovici, of world-wide fame for
his short stories and books, who while very young left his half-Jewish,
half -gypsy family in Braila and struggled ia the lower East Side of
New York until finally his genius brought him fame and financial
success; Dr. Trajan Leucutsia, of a distinguished Transylvanian family,
who studied in Vienna and Paris and is director of the X-Ray Depart-
ment of Harper Hospital in Detroit; Dr. lonel Gardescu, fijst pe-
troleum engineer to have taken a doctor’s degree at the University of
California, son of a general in the Rumanian Army, student in Paris
and Pittsburgh, and at present with the Texas Oil Company in
Houston; Dr. Valer Barbu, of Transylvania, also a graduate from
Vienna and Paris, who is doing research work at Cornell University;
Eugene Ravage, author of An American in the Making, who needs
no introduction to the American public; Judge Leon Rene Yankwich,
who came as a young boy from lassy iti order to study, graduated
from Willamette University, took his doctor’s degree in jurisprudence
from the University of California, is district federal judge in Los
Angeles, and is considered one of the most brilliant and upright of
high officials in California; engineer C. D. Barbuiescu, a genius in
aeronautics and ammunitions, the only foreigner who entered the
United States Government Aviation Field at Dayton, Ohio; Peter
Neagoe, whose novels of Rumanian peasant life are widely read in
America. Dr. Dagobert Runes, a Rumanian with a Ph.D. from
Vienna, established in New York City one of the most successful
publishing houses in recent years, the Philosophical Library. Jean
Negulesco is Warner Brothers’ “Solon” of the short motion features,
1 This section, adapted from the original edition, was written in its original form
by Christine Galifzi.
2 32 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: EAST EUROPEAN STATES
having directed over fifty of them. Among his productions have
been such dissimilar efforts as eleven government shorts, two Monte
Carlo Ballet reels, “Alice in Movieland,” with Joan Leslie, Mary
Roberts Rinehardt’s “The Dog in the Orchard,” and Damon Runyon’s
“The Stroke of Twelve,” not to mention an entire series of short
features starring the nation’s leading swing bands.
Contrary to the current disregard in which immigrants from the
southern European countries are held, the above picture permits one
to conclude that the Rumanian Americans, like the Italians, the
Greeks, and all the other southern Europeans who came during the
period of selective immigration, form a rather eugenic ethnic minority
whose healthy psychological make-up, persevering work, and ability
to adapt themselves to a new environment constitute a guarantee to
the real strength and the general well-being of America.
CHAPTER VIII
"'New” Immigration: South European States
A. ALBANIAN AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
T he ALBANIANS are unique, in several respects, in the differ-
ences that distinguish them from most of America’s minorities.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of their story is their growing
recognition, on their arrival here, that they belonged to a national
community with a claim to its own rights and dignity in the world.
As a result, their national consciousness was greatly intensified. In
turn, these nationalistic activities in America paved the way for their
active participation in the struggle for Albanian independence. In-
stead of losing themselves in the ebb and flow processes of Amer-
icanization, instead of taking part in American political and social
movements, they became conscious of being Albanians, founded an
Albanian press, and for the first time formed an autonomous na-
tional church — ^in America. They brought with them a memory of
the Balkan struggles for national unity and independence and lived in
self-imposed poverty when it was necessary, sending their wages
home, hoarding them against the day of their return, or using them
to further their national cause. Their activities helped to a con-
siderable degree in the formation of a free Albania.
T his concentration of Albanian Americans on the affairs of the
old country is by no means a singly and peculiar phenomenon — ^the
influence of the Irish and the Czechoslovaks in America and of the
overseas Chinese throughout the world in furnishing leadership, mass
support, and funds for national movements in their own countries is
well known. That such concentration exists without our knowledge,
however, is an interesting commentary on our ignorance of the polit-
ical and cultural activities in our history carried on by almost unknown
immigrant groups living in our midst — ^litde groups of devoted ad-
m
234 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
herents to causes connected with names and personalities nearly all
of which have no meaning to most of us.^
Immigration
It is believed that the first Albanian immigrant from “the Land of
the Eagle” came to America in 1876.® He was followed by Kol
(Nicholas) Dristofor, who settled in Massachusetts in 1886, and who
lived in 1939 as an Albanian Orthodox priest in Southbridge. On
his trips to his native country, he brought a few friends and relatives
back with him, and thus the first ten Albanians in America all came
from the same village, Katundi. Their home visits and their checks
and letters kindled the imagination of others. After 1 905, commercial
interests stimulated the desire to emigrate.
In general, the prewar Albanian immigration was composed of two
distinct groups: those who decided to leave their native country
because of economic conditions, and those who took this step for
political reasons. Because of civil wars and oppression in Albania
for the decade 1904 to 1914, political refugees predominated. This
is a very important fact, as it explains why a very considerable number
of Albanians returned to their native country during the first decade
after World War I. Later, at least a third of them, disillusioned,
re-immigrated to the United States, determined this time to make
America their permanent home. Most of those who remained in the
old country were Moslems.
We have no reliable American statistics for the pre-World War I
period, for the simple reason that nearly all of the Albanians were then
allowed to enter this country on Turkish passports, and that others
were classified as Greeks because many of them belonged to the
Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church. Obviously, the official figures
of only 9,420 immigrants from Albania is therefore misleading. It is
1 For the implications of our tendency to disregard the importance of Central-
Eastern Europe in the formation of world history — and thus also in the development
of America’s civilization — see Joseph S. Roucek: Misapprehensions about Central-
Eastern Europe in Anglo-Saxon Historiography (Reprinted from the Quarterly
Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, January, 1944.) See
also: The Politics of the Balkans, Chapter V, “Albania,” pp. 84-98. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1939; “Albania as a Nation,” pp. loy-iopjn Joseph S. Roucek,
Ed., “A Challenge to Peacemakers,” The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, 232 (March, 1944); “The Social Character of Albanian
Politics,” Social Science, X (January, 1935), pp. 71-79; “Social Aspects of Albania,”
World Affairs Interpreter, VII (April, 1936), pp. 70-76.
2 Federal Writers’ Project of the WPA of Massachusetts, The Albanian Struggle
in the Old World and New, pp. 5-6. Boston: The Writer, 1939. This is a very
valuable cooperative study of one of the smallest of America’s minorities.
ALBANIAN AMERICANS
235
in sharp contrast to Mr. Konitza’s estimate of 80,000 prior to World
War 1 . He believed that there were in America in 1944 some 30,000
Albanians, approximately 50,000 having returned to their native
country from 1919 to 1925.
There are several interesting points about Albanian immigration.
One is that nearly all immigrants have come from the southern parts
of AJbania. The northern parts are inhabited by warlike Ghegs,
while Tosks, who live in the south, are more cultured and have a
socio-tribal system that is not so clearly defined. Another interesting
point is that, to a most unusual degree, the Albanians have given up
their former pursuits as soldiers, sheepherders, livestock keepers, and
farmers; they are chiefly employed as unskilled workers in factories
or industrial plants of varied production. Only a few Albanian
farmers are scattered through Worcester County in Massachusetts.
Hundreds of Boston Albanians are employed as cooks, countermen,
and bus boys. Perhaps half of the Albanian population in America
supports itself as tradespeople of restaurants, lunchrooms, grocery
stores, barrooms, barber shops, candy stores, shoe-shine parlors, and
tailoring estabhshments.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
As the first Albanian immigrants settled around Boston, their friends
followed them, whence they spread to other parts of Massachusetts,
and then westward, through Pennsylvania, to Chicago and Detroit.
But many of the Albanian settlements have disappeared, and today
there are perhaps eighteen thousand American Albanians, including
their children, scattered through New England. Old Albanian settle-
ments exist in Manchester and Concord, New Hampshire, and Paw-
tucket, Rhode Island; Maine’s shoe and textile towns draw upon
Albanian labor. Small Albanian businessmen have their roots in
Bridgeport, Hartford, and Waterbury, Connecticut. The remainder
are located in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, northern
New York, Minnesota, Utah, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Washington,
and Cahfomia.
The enormous discrepancy in the proportion of men and women
is also of interest. These immigrants came without famihes, often as
refugees, and even more frequendy with the intention of saving
enough money to return to the Land of the Eagle and buy a piece
of land or new tools. This lack of family life is revealed from the
census figures, which show that there were 444 males to 100 females
in 1920, and in 1930, 294 males to 100 females. The late Mr.
23*5 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
Konitza, Albania’s minister to the United States during King Zog’s
regime, estimated that out of i oo Albanian men only fifteen had wives
in America; that from the total of some 30,000 American Albanians,
only 1,000 were women.
After 1920, however, when the Albanians went to their country
and returned with wives, or imported them, conditions changed con-
siderably. Heretofore, American Albanians had tended to carry on
their social life in the cofFee house, which was their employment
agency as weU as forum and club. Thereafter, these picturesque
old-world haunts disappeared one by one. Albanian women who
arrived made homes for their men.
In their homes the immigrants try to preserve the memory of the
homeland. Authentic Albanian decorations are usually scattered
among standard American pieces; gay blankets of heavy wool are
likely to be thrown over couches and chairs. The floor, perhaps,
is covered with a hand-woven Albanian rug. The visitor is served
llokume — Turkish paste — and the sweet Turkish coffee that Alba-
nians consume in quantities. The Albanian housewife serves Al-
banian or Greek bread made from potatoes and whole wheat; she
cooks her vegetables in oil. When a son or a daughter is married,
the couple still arranges a gala festival with many of the ceremonial
niceties observed on such occasions in Albania.® The old people,
gathering on name days or New Year’s, solemnly repeat the customary
Albanian formulas of congratulations. They drink raki, and sing
Albanian folk songs, and usually end the evening with a round of
satirical storytelling about the shortcomings of the priests of their
respective towns.
Naturalization. As may be expected, the number of Albanians
who have become naturalized is extremely small. An explanation
of this fact is that the Albanian is before all else proudly an Albanian,
dominated by an intense nationalistic and ethnic spirit, the result of
centuries of oppression and struggle as well as of the geographical
isolation of his homeland. We must remember, too, that the modem
Albanian is a direct descendant of the ancient pre-Hellenic Illyrian,
who has persisted for more than four thousand years. Goth, Slav,
Venetian, Turkish, and finally, Italian invaders beat about the edges
of his land and oifly partly or never wholly conquered it.
Literacy. Albanian immigrants show another interesting charac-
teristic. Although they are not very desirous of becoming naturalized
^The Albanian Struggle (ibid,), Chapter V, ‘‘Chronicle of Cultural Heritage,” pp.
113-161, is the best introduction to this aspect of social life of American Albanians.
ALBANIAN AMERICANS
237
and assimilated in America — a process usually connected with the
decline of illiteracy (which declined among them from over 90 per
cent in 1906 to less than 15 per cent in 1940) — the movement for
adult education among the Albanians in the United States was orig-
inated by their own leaders, independently of American influence.
The Albanians of the pre-World War I days were fortunate in
having a few able leaders powerful enough to convince their com-
patriots that their nationalistic sentiment could be expressed in con-
structive channels only by learning more about Albanian history,
language, and culture. The first nationalistic organization. Mother-
land, was founded at Jamestown, New York, around 1905. But
the real foundation of the Albanian nationalist movement in the
United States was laid by the publication of Kombi, first Albanian
newspaper in America, published on June 1 2, 1906, in Boston, by Sotir
Petsi. The education of the American Albanians was one of its
primary purposes. But as is nearly always true of all immigrant
movements, the movement mirrored the current politics abroad. The
establishment of an Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church by
Noli and of the National Church Association in 1908 further
strengthened the nationalistic movement. But the real spur was
given to the movement by the arrival of Faik Bey Konitza in the
United States in 1908. This first Albanian bey to visit his people
in America was a graduate of the universities of Dijon, Paris, and
Harvard. His literary abilities and caustic writings made Konitza
feared by the Turks, the masters of Albania at that time. To Konitza,
the Albanian nation owes the expurgation of foreign words from the
Albanian language and its reconstruction. In 1908, Konitza, later
Albanian minister to the United States, came to America and began
to put. the smouldering Albanian nationalistic spirit into more con-
structive channels by founding, a year later, the Pan-Albanian Federa-
tion of America. This Vcttra (The Hearth) united some fifteen
Albanian societies and grew into an organization embracing some fifty
branches by 1921. Its objects were educational as well as nation-
ahstic; it taught Albanian and English, published inexpensive literature,
and, above all, fostered the national Albanian traditions. Thanks to
its efforts, the high degree of illiteracy of the Albanian immigrant
was reduced to a remarkable degree, not so much as a part of the
desire to Americanize, but rather as a part of the process which had
in view the eventual freedom of Albania. By 1944 the organization
was comparatively inactive, and factionalism had divided it into two
rival Vatras, with headquarters in Detroit and in Boston.
238 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
Social divisions. With the realization of the independence of Al-
bania, the American Albanians divided into several factions. In gen-
eral, the main line was drawn between those who upheld the regime
of King Zog in Albania and those who opposed it. In fact, the latter
group was subdivided into some twenty or more factions, but these
were nominally under the leadership of Fan Noli, a colorful figure in
politics in Albania, who had been first an actor, then an Eastern
Orthodox priest, and later became the Bishop of the Albanian Ortho-
dox Church of Boston.
In addition to these factions, stained with political coloring, each
of the larger Albanian settlements in America usually has its death-
benefit society composed of men from the same community in
Albania. The societies, therefore, bear such names as Katundi,
KorchUy and Stratoberdha. They have helped to repair churches and
streets in the old country, raise the marriage dowry of orphaned and
destimte girls in Albania, publish national works, and grant scholar-
ships to students from Korcha attending America’s higher institutions
of learning.
The press. The old Vatra published a weekly, the Dielli (Sun),
in Detroit, while the rival Vatra put out another Dielli in Boston.
The personal factionalism is also represented by the appearance of
Bota (The World ) in Boston since 1936, the result of George Prifti’s
foreclosure of the Vatra property. Bota tries to appeal to the
younger generation by printing many articles in English. But the
future of the papers is doubtful, as is illustrated by the fact that the
Boston Dielli, founded in 1909, and hence “the oldest Albanian news-
paper in the world,” suspended its publication on December 9, 1939,
its editor, Nelo Drizari, attributing the suspension to nonpayment of
annual subscriptions by King 2 k>g and officials of the Albanian regime
who were deposed in Italy’s conquest of that nation.
Religion. Albanian immigrants are divided into two chief denomi-
nations — Orthodox Albanians and Moslems. There are some Catho-
lic Albanians and some Protestant Albanians, but the first-named
classifications are by far the largest. The large majority are Eastern
Orthodox Tosks. The Mohammedans are concentrated for the most
part in St. Louis, Missouri, and in Peabody and New Bedford, Massa-
chusetts. Only a few are Roman CathoHcs, and these live mostly in
Indiana, Chicago, and New York.
The bulk of Albanian immigrants, however, were of the Greek
Orthodox faith. In 1908, a convention held in Boston proclaimed
the religious independence of the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox
ALBANIAN AMERICANS
239
Church under Fan Noli, who received his investiture at the hands of
Platon, the Russian Archbishop of New York. There are altogether
ten Albanian Orthodox churches in America: three in Boston, two
in Philadelphia, and one each in Natick, Worcester, and Southbridge,
Massachusetts, Jamestown, New York, and St. Louis, Missouri.
These churches, the principal centers of group activity among Al-
banians, cannot, however, independently support their priests, who
visit their congregations on circular travels. In some communities,
the oldest member of the church reads the services to the congre'»
gation. The church is affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church
and has its headquarters in Boston. It follows the doctrine and ritual
of the Orthodox Church, the only difference being that it officiates in
the Albanian language. There are no Albanian Catholic and Moslem
churches or priests, although the Moslem National Alliance supported
a regular school at Waterbury, Connecticut, before World War I.
Many Albanian Moslems are members of the Unitarian churches.
Whatever the religion of the Albanian, he is never strictly orthodox.
Tribal and communal loyalty, the codes of ancient customs, and
national pride are far more important to the Albanian than is religion.
As is usually the case with other immigrant groups, the second
generation is a real problem to the Albanians. These younger people
dislike or are indifferent to Albanian journals and particularly to the
factional struggles over leadership in Albania’s cause. American
newspapers may seem alien to their parents, but the young people like
them, for many of them are tired of old bitterness and futile hatreds.
Both generations are outraged by prevailing conditions in the old
country under Zog’s domination and especially by the Italian in-
fluence. The youngsters resent that “Americans don’t even know
where Albania is.” They have little money and can boast of no
Albanian politicians, no mayors, no real “big shots.” As school chil-
dren in America, they almost forget their Albanian ancestry, and
sometimes they tend to become vociferously “American.” As a rule,
however, they respect the intense feeling of their parents against inter-
marriage with other nationalities; therefore, arranged marriages stiU
prevail. Parents of the Greek Orthodox faith often follow the old-
world custom of giving a dowry to their daughters. But even these
young Albanians can hardly understand their parents when they speak
Albanian.
Albanians cmd World Wars I and 11 . Prior to 1912, few of the
American Albanians knew the word Albania. In their homeland
their people called themselves Shqipetare — “Sons of the Eagle” — and
240 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
their country Shqiperia — “the Land of the Eagle.” But they became
increasingly aware that they belonged to a nationality — the result
of their contacts with their surroundings in America. This awareness
prepared the ground for the ardent crusaders for Albanian nationalism
who came to the factory hands in 1905 from Albanian patriotic head-
quarters in Rumania, Greece, and Egypt. As immigration to America
increased, the leaders of the Albanian nationalistic movement began
to devote themselves to converting their people to the cause. The
newspaper played an important role in forging a common national
spirit; the konak served as the schoolhouse. (Ten or fifteen men
often lived together in a single flat, the konak, where they did their
own cooking, washing, and mending.) The mass-education move-
ment furthered the nationalistic cause. Fan Noli used his pulpit in
the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, organized in 1908,
as a tribune for nationalistic preaching. The arrival of Faik Konitza
added another able and fiery proponent to the nationalistic movement
and resulted in the formation of Vatra in April, 1912. Thereafter,
aggressive international propaganda was carried on on behalf of inde-
pendent Albania; cables were sent to Valona and to Albanian colonies
in Rumania and Egypt, and the dignitaries of the London Conference
(1912) were deluged with Vatra’s cables and memoranda.
During World War I, Vatra at first supported Germany, since
the Prince of Wied represented for it at least the symbol of freedom
and independence. With the entrance of the United States into the
war, Vatra made a hasty about-face and became a militant advocate
of the Allied cause; its members subscribed to the war loans, and the
Reverend Fan Noli made the circuit of military camps in Massa-
chusetts defivering fiery speeches to the doughboys.
Vatra sent Mehmet Konitza, with several others, to the Peace Con-
ference as its chief delegate. It appealed to its members for a national
fund to help fight the cause at Versailles. In all, $150,000 was
raised; part went to Vatra’s representatives in Paris; the rest was used
for various purposes, including the issuing of an English monthly,
the Adriatic Review. Numerous booklets also were issued. In 1919
the Albanian nationalists made a suggestion — ^said to have been in-
spired by Mehmet Konitza — ^that America should be given a mandate
in Albania under the League of Nations. But the Versailles Confer-
ence intended to dismember Albania — and only Wilson’s stubborn
refusal saved the independence of the country.
Thereafter, Vatra and its leaders frequently interfered m the in-
ternal policies of Albania. Scores of American Albanians returned to
ALBANIAN AMERICANS
241
their country and became government officials, deputies, prefects,
subprefects, police commissioners, army officers, schoolteachers, and
priests. But most of them soon learned that “American” and “Alba-
nian” ways do not mix well, and eventually they returned to America.
The Munich Pact of 1938 reawakened the interest of American
Albanians in the fate of their country. Even the opponents of the
Zog regime had held a strong irredendist sentiment for the “lost
provinces” of Kossovo and Chameria. Petitions were dispatched to
Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini, and Daladier complaining that “the
overwhelming majority of its (Chameria’s) inhabitants — our friends
and relatives living in Chameria — are unwilling subjects to another
nation,” and the statesmen were implored to “consider” these in-
justices. Receipt of the petition was acknowledged only by Italy,
which sent a noncommittal reply through the Italian ambassador in
Washington.
When Albania was invaded under the pretext that the country
was in a state of internal chaos on April 7, 1939, once again Albanians,
who had devoted their energies and their substance to the ideal of a
free Albania, saw their aspirations crushed by a foreign invader. On
Easter Sunday, 1939, Albanian communities throughout America
were again seething with plans for the reconquest of Albanian inde-
pendence. Count Curti de Mortale, consul-general of Albania in
New York, after receiving “innumerable telegrams asking that a
protest be made on behalf of 50,000 Albanian colony members in
the United States,” sent messages asking intervention to Pope Pius XII,
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Premier Edouard Daladier, in-
cluding a telegram to President Roosevelt signed by Mrs. Areti Viso,
president of various Albanian groups, among them, the Albanian
American League.*
Contributions to American Life
There are only a few really outstanding Albanians in America. The
most successful and the best-known Albanian was Faik Bey Konitza,
the Albanian minister to the United States, an accomplished philologist
and historical scholar, whose unobtrusive but scholarly qualities have
done much to promote the good reputation of Albanian Americans
and of his country. Professor La Piana of Harvard, who is a specialist
in early church history, traces his roots to an Albanian family that
settled in Italy. Mr. George Prifti, the Albanian consul in Boston, is
^ The New York Times, April 9, 1939.
242 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
a graduate of Boston University, a member of the Massachusetts and
federal bar, and oiEciaUy represented his country in Boston. Stephen
Panis is a nationally known silversmith. Miss Nexhmie Zaimi’s
Daughter of the Eagle (New York; Ives Washburn, 1937), is an
immigrant’s story of the customs of the Albanian people. Thomas
Nassi, conductor of the Cape Cod Philharmonic Society,* has pub-
lished the scores of many Albanian songs.
B. GREEK AMERICANS
AL J. POLITIS
The story of the Greeks in the United States is a comparatively
recent one. Mass emigration from Greece to this country started
only during the last decade of the nineteenth century, to reach its apex
during the first quarter of the twentieth and mark a sizable decline
immediately after the restrictive legislation of 1924 had been put in
force.
Yet, if the theory advocated by the late Seraphim G. Canoutas ^
proves to be true, no lesser a figure in the history of America than
Christopher Columbus himself was a Greek. Incontrovertible evi-
dence does exist, however, that only thirty-six years after the discovery
of America a Greek stepped upon the soil of this continent. Panfilo
de Narvaez, in his chronicle of the expedition of Alvar Nunez Cabeza
de Vaca, tells us that a Greek — “griego ’’ — ^by the name of Theodore
(Don Teodoro) was a member of that expedition which reached the
coasts of western Florida, somewhere near the present-day Tampa,
in 1528. The Greek Theodore is specifically mentioned as having
“extracted resin from the pine,” with which he caulked the seams of
the boats. When the expedition left for South America,Theodore
stayed behind, and De Soto’s men found his traces, in 1 540, somewhere
in the neighborhood of Pensacola Bay.^
In 1592, a native of the island of Cephalonia, the Greek John
Phocas, who is better known under the Spanish name of Juan de
Fuca, discovered the strait that separates the American continent from
Vancouver’s Island, called then the fabulous Anian, and now bearing
his own name. Strait Juan de Fuca.® It is noteworthy that the Seattle
1 Seraphim G. Canoutas, Christopher Columbus, A Greek Nobleman. New York:
St. Mark’s Press, 1943.
2 Greek-Americam of Florida. Information Collected by the Florida Writers’
Project, Works Projects Administration. Published in Athene Magazine, Chicago,
111 ., June, 1942; also Seraphim G, Canoutas, Hellenism in America (text in Greek).
New York: St. Mark’s Press, 1918.
2 Seraphim G. Canoutas, Christopher Columbus, A Greek Noblentan, p. 188.
GREEK AMERICANS 243
Chapter of the Order of Ahepa — ^largest fraternal organization of
Americans of Greek descent in this country — ^is named after this
intrepid Cephalonian navigator. A number of other Greek seamen
participated in various expeditions to this continent. Many of them
had changed their names, however, into Spanish or English forms,
thus making it practically impossible to trace their Greek origin.
The first settlement of Greeks in the United States dates from 1 768,
when a Scottish physician, Dr. Andrew Turnbull, founded the “Greek
Colony” of New Smyrna, Florida. Married to a Greek girl from
Smyrna, Gracia Dura Bin, and having lived in Greece, Dr. Turnbull
felt that Florida, with its climate similar to that of Greece, would
be an ideal haven for Greek settlers. His original plan called for an
exclusively Greek settlement of about five hundred farmers, but as
he had difficulty in recruiting more than two hundred of that na-
tionality, he looked for additional men in Livorno, Italy, and in
Minorca of the Balearic Islands. The total number of settlers
amounted to fifteen hundred, but the colony was a short-lived one.
Ten years after its foundation, most of the settlers had been decimated
by malaria, or killed during the almost continuous clashes with the
Indians. Those who survived the rigors of the climate and the
guerrilla warfare moved to near-by St. Augustine, Florida.*
The memory of at least one of those early Greek settlers is still
alive in St. Augustine, “the oldest city of the United States.” The
Greek, John Giannopoli, is remembered not because he was an out-
standing farmer or soldier, but because of his respect for learning.
Giannopoli built a schoolhouse where he taught the “three R’s” to
the children of St. Augustine. The schoolhouse, now a property
of the municipality of St. Augustine, constitutes one of the landmarks
of that historic city. The writer has had the opportunity of going
through early Spanish records kept in the Webb Memorial Library of
St. Augustine, which provide ample proof of the Hellenic origin of
Giannopoli and of a few other Greek settlers, whose descendants are
said to have been dispersed in various southern states.
At the time of the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829),
American missionaries and other philhellenes, who hastened to give
their support to the Greek cause of freedom, brought over a number
of young boys from Greece, chiefly from Chios, an island of the
Aegean renowned for its brilliant scholars and its shrewd traders.
The boys were educated at AmheKt, Andover, and other similar insti-
* “Greek-Americans of Florida,” Athene Magazine, Chicago, HI., June, 1942.
244 “NEW” lAIMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
tutions. Some of them returned to Greece, there to occupy promi-
nent positions in the fields of letters and commerce. Others stayed
in the United States. Four of these Greek refugees are known to
have served in the United States Navy: George Syrianis, who was
a gunner; George Marshall, who was also author of the first manual of
marine gunnery under the title Practical Marine Gunnery; Fotios
Fish, who was a chaplain of the United States Navy and an ardent
opponent of the slave trade; and George Mussalas Colvocoressis, who
took part in many important expeditions all over the world, and who
wrote the chronicle of the Wilkes expedition to the island of Madeira,
Cape Verde, Brazil, Australia, the Northwest coast of America, the
East Indies, and other places.® His son, Rear Admiral George Par-
tridge Colvocoressis, participated in the naval engagements fought by
Admiral Dewey in the Philippines and served as executive ofiicer on
the admiral’s flagship.® The Colvocoressis family, as well as the Ralli
and Galati famflies, have taken deep root in this country and their
descendants today occupy prominent positions in American so-
ciety.
In 1867, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the philhellene who had ren-
dered priceless services to the Hellenic cause during the Revolution
of 1821, brought over from Greece Michael Anagnostopoulos, better
known as Michael Anagnos, a native of Epirus, who became interested
in the great work Dr. Howe was doing as head of the Perkins Insti-
tute for the Blind in Boston. Anagnos became Dr. Howe’s assistant,
later his son-in-law, and upon Dr. Howe’s death, in 1886, he was
chosen to succeed him as director of the institute, which position he
held with distinction until his death in 1906. Ex-Governor Guild of
Massachusetts said of him: “The name of Michael Anagnos belongs to
Greece; the fame of him belongs to the United States, but his service
belongs to humanity!” Anagnos epitomized the best qualities of the
Greek. His name is revered by every Greek immigrant. Honoring
his memory, Michael Loris, a Greek on whom fell the honor during
World War II of being the nation’s champion salesman of “E”
War Bonds — ^having sold personally over $5,500,000 worth till
the end of July, 1944 — christened with the name of S.S. Michael
Anagnos a Liberty ship launched on September 7, 1944, at the
New England Shipbuilding Company’s Yards at South Portland,
Maine.
5 George Mussalas Colvocoressis, Four Years in a Government Exploring Expedi-
tion^ New York, 1852; also Hellenism in America^ by Seraphim G. Canoutas.
6 Seraphim G. Canoutas, Hellenism in America,
GREEK AMERICANS
245
The acme of Greek mmngratioTi. With the exception of a small
number of merchants and professional men who came to the United
States during the latter part of the nineteenth century, immigration
from Greece continued to be very limited until the last decade of
that century. The following figures, taken from the sixteenth census
of the United States (1940), are indicative of the growth of Greek
immigration at the turn of the century: 1890, 1,887; 1900, 8,515;
1910, 101,264; (peak census year), 175,972; 1930, 174,526; 1940,
163,252.
In a study published in Athens by Basileios Balaoras, a graduate of
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, it is stated that over
460,000 Greeks, or, about one tenth of the total population of Greece
at that time, emigrated to America from 1901 to 1930. The peak
year was 1907, with 36,580 immigrants from Greece. The second
largest year was 1914, after the Balkan Wars, when 35,832 persons
came from Greece to the United States, and the third largest year
was 1922, when, after the Asia Minor catastrophe, 28,502 Greeks left
for the United States. Total emigration to the United States from
1 820 to 1934 was 488,824. During the same period, Greek emigration
to all other countries of the world amounted to only 40,814 persons.
From 1935 to 1943, a total of 5,460 immigrants arrived from Greece.
As in the case of many minority groups, so with the Greeks; equally
reliable data show wide variations in the number of immigrants.
In Table XII (page 647), there is a discrepancy of 40,000 within a
single decade between the number given by Balaoras and that given
by Marketos.® This discrepancy may be attributed to the fact that
while Dr. Balaoras’s table shows departures from Greece to the United
States, which may include GreelK from various parts of the “un-
redeemed” Hellenic world, the immigration figures given by Mr.
Babis Marketos apply merely to arrivals of persons born in the
Greek state proper. Mr. Marketos points out that “the reader should
add to his figures, which are official, also those persons of Greek
descent who are not Greek subjects, that is to say Greeks from
European Turkey, Asia Minor, Cyprus, the Dodecanese Islands, and
Egypt, who, naturally, are not included in the official list of immi-
grants from Greece,” being classified under the particular country
of which they happened to be subjects at the time of their arrival in
the United States.
7 Basiieios G, Balaoras, The Hellenism of the United States^ with an English sum-
mary. Text in Greek, Athens, 1937.
® Babis Marketos, Greece at the Crossroads. Text in Greek- New York, 1942.
2^6 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
In a survey by Christ Loukas on the “Status of Greek Population
in the United States,” published in Volume One, Number One of
The Hellenic Spectator,^ we find that of the foreign-bom Greek
population in the United States in 1920, 6,382 gave a country other
than Greece as “country of origin”; in 1930, those from Greece
showed an increase of only 1,370, while the number of Greeks from
countries other than Greece increased to 19,420. The largest group,
1 1,499, were from Asiatic Turkey. (See Table XIII, page 647.)
Mr. Loukas quotes as his authority the United States census for
1930. There are, however, estimates of a more or less reliable char-
acter that claim as many as two fifths of the foreign-born Greeks in
the United States as coming from territories other than those of
Greece proper. This ratio is substantiated by Professor William I.
Cole, who made a study of the Greeks in the state of Massachusetts.^"
He admitted, however, that the “exact size of the Greek population
is more or less conjectural.”
Despite the gradual extinction of the early immigrants, people of
Greek stock increase continuously in numbers, because of the rela-
tively large number of persons in each Greek family. The average
family has three children. It would be safe, therefore, to multiply
by four, or even by five, the figure of 163,252, shown as the total of
Greek-born immigrants in this country in 1940, in order to arrive
at a fair estimate of the people of Greek descent in the United States.
The Greek Archdiocese of North and South America places the
number of Greeks — ^both born abroad and their offspring — in the
neighborhood of 750,000, including, of course, members of the second
and third generations.
The figure for Greek immigrants classified as coming from “Italy”
corresponds, to a large extent, to persons from the Dodecanese Islands.
These people, 100 per cent Greek in sentiment, did not like to be
classed as “Italians,” and as a result of a memorandum submitted to
the United States Department of Justice by the National Committee
for the Restoration of Greece, the Dodecanesians were specifically
excluded from the alien enemy classification on February 23, 1942,
when Italy was still at war with the United States and Italian citizens
were considered enemy aliens.^^
® The Hellenic Spectator, monthly magazine in English, published in Washington,
D. C. during 1940 and 1941 by Constantine Poulos.
10 William 1 . Cole, Immigrant Races in Massachusetts — The Greeks. Written for
the Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration. No date.
The Dodecanesians Are Not Enemy Aliens, published by the Dodecanesian
League of America, New York, 1942.
GREEK AMERICANS
247
Greek immigration to this country was mainly due to economic
reasons. The bulk of early Greek immigrants came from the
Peloponnesos, and, chiefly, from the rocky and mountainous regions
of Arcadia and Laconia. The districts of Tripolis and Sparta pro-
vided the largest number of early Greek immigrants, who sought jobs
mostly in urban centers of the Eastern and Middle Western states.
As for the Greeks from the unredeemed territories of the Hellenic
world, many of them came to avoid compulsory service in the Turkish
Army, or to escape the persecution of their Bulgarian or other rulers.
In view of the uncertain future that awaited the Greek immi-
grants, most of whom came to this country spurred by the motive
of bettering their economic position, and hoping that after amassing
a certain amount of money they would be able to return to their
native land to establish themselves there in business or agriculture, for
many years Greek immigration was overwhelmingly an immigration
of males.
A table in Dr. Balaoras’s aforementioned study shows that from
1896 to 1900 only four women arrived for every too men coming
to the United States from Greece. Five women for every too men
was the proportion for the decade 1901 -19 10, and sixteen women
for every too men was that for 1911-1920. The figure jumped to
sixty-seven women for every too men for the period from 1921 to
1924. This increase means that the Greek immigrants had by that
time taken root here and, with the improvement of their financial
condition, that they had brought brides from the motherland. Dr.
Balaoras, on the other hand, points out that although in 1900 there
were eleven Greek-born women for every too Greek-bom men in
the United States, the proportion increased to twenty-three women
per 100 men in 1920, and to thirty-five women per too men in 1930,
while the percentage in the arrivals from Greece during 1930 was
sixty-one women to every 100 men coming into the United States.
The United States 1940 census shows that of a total of 163,252 Greek-
born persons in the United States in 1940, 117,324 were male and
45,928 female. In 1930, out of a total of 174,526 Greek-bom persons
in the United States (official figures of the 1930 census), 129,101 were
male and 45,425 female. Generally, the Greeks prefer to marry
among Greek families, but with the growing assimilation of the Greek
element, mixed marriages are on the increase.
Geographical distribution and occupations. The Greeks, being of
a restless and venturesome character, prefer to engage in commerce
and shipping rather than in rural occupations. It is true that in the
248 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
early stages of Greek immigration, when most of the Greeks arrived
without any capital and with practically no knowledge of the English
language, many thousands of them were employed in railroad con-
struction, in digging sewers, as farm laborers, and as mill and factory
hands, the latter employed chiefly in Massachusetts and New Hamp-
shire. But Professor Ross, quoted by William E. Cole,^- states:
There is a strong tendency among the Greeks to take certain lines of
business such as candy kitchens and confectionery stores, ice-cream
parlors, fruit carts, stands, and stores, florist shops, and boot-blacking
establishments. This is due to the fact that this catering to the minor
wants of the public admits of being started on the curb with little capital
and no experience. Once his foot on the first rung, the saving and com-
mercial-minded Greek climbs. From curb to stand, from stand to store,
from little store to big store, to the chain of stores to branch store in
other cities, such are the stages in his upward path.
To the professions enumerated by Professor Ross, one must add the
restaurant business — ^in which the Greeks have played and still are
playing quite an important role throughout the United States — ^the
fur industry, and the motion-picture industry. Numerous Greeks
own and operate chains of' motion-picture houses throughout the
country, and the names of the Skouras Brothers and of Pantages are
of nation-wide reputation. The Greeks have distinguished them-
selves also in the tobacco industry, with the firm of Stephano Brothers
in Philadelphia, founded by Constantine Stephano, a native of Epirus,
Greece (died in 1944), being the financially strongest Greek-Amer-
ican concern in 1944.
The United States census for 1940 provides unmistakable evidence
of the preference of the Greeks for urban centers. Thus, of the
total of 163,252 Greek-bom persons in the United States shown by
that census, 106,102 males and 43,301 females were to be found in
urban centers, as compared with 116,524 males and 42,582 females
for 1930. Nonfarm rural Greek-bom males in 1940 are shown by
the same census as 8,730 males and 2,068 females, the figures for 1930
being 10,625 and 2,067 respectively. The rural-farm Greek-born
population for 1940 was 2,432 males and 559 females, as compared
with 1,952 males and 506 females for 1930.
The geographical distribution of the Greek-bom population of
163,252, shown by the United States Official Census of 1940, is shown
in Table XI (page 646), according to regions. The three Middle
Atlantic states lead with 50,598; the smallest number, 2,042, live in
William E. Cole, op. ctt.
GREEK AMERICANS
249
the four East South Central states. Greeks are living in every state in
the Union, the number varying from 188 in Vermont to 34,800
in New York. In five states there are more than ro,ooo: Ilhnois,
18,428; Massachusetts, 15,208; California, 12,421; Pennsylvania, 10,-
510; and Ohio, 10,058. Thirteen states have less than 500 Greeks:
Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi,
Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and
Vermont — aU states of sparse population and little urbanization.
It should be emphasized, however, that these figures cover only
persons bom in Greece proper y which means that approximately only
three fifths of the immigrants of Greek nationality are included, the
other two fifths having come, as already mentioned, from the “unre-
deemed” territories of the Hellenic world.
The cities with the largest Greek population are New York, Chi-
cago, Detroit, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia,
Washington, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. Al-
though the Greek communities in the above-mentioned cities are quite
sizable — the total number of people of Greek stock in New York
and Chicago is well over the 50,000 mark — the Greek element neces-
sarily constitutes only a small fraction of their total population. This
is not the case, however, with such localities as Tarpon Springs,
Florida, or Lowell, Massachusetts, where the Greeks play a prepon-
derant role in the life of the community.
In Tarpon Springs, the Greeks, mostly from the Dodecanese
Islands, are well over one half of the total population. Such is their
devotion to Greece — ^although technically the Dodecanesians came
under the Italian quota — ^that a resolution of the Board of Commis-
sioners of Tarpon Springs, dated January 2, 1944, petitioned for the
liberation of the Dodecanese Islands and for their union with Greece
after the war.^®
Apart from being the city with proportionately the largest Greek
population in the United States, Tarpon Springs has the distinction
of being also the most important sponge center in the world. Forty
years ago John Cheyney, a Philadelphia investor, became interested
in deep-sea diving and brought from Madison Street, New York —
then a Greek neighborhood — a number of Greek divers and expert
sponge fishers. Up to that time, sponges had been fished by means
of hooks; but the best sponges are to be found in deep waters not
13 For the text of this resolution, see The Greek Dodecanese^ A Symposium by
Prominent Americans, New York, 1944* Published by The Dodecanesian National
Council,
250 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
accessible to the hooks. The pioneer, John Cocoris, a native of the
island of Aegina, and other famous Greek divers of the time, intro-
duced the methods of diving and sponge fishing prevalent in the
Mediterranean. Within a few years the sleepy resort of Tarpon
Springs was converted into a world-famed sponge market, with mil-
lions of dollars’ worth of sponges being sold every year in its Sponge
Exchange, which is now almost exclusively owned by the Greeks.^*
Tarpon Springs is also celebrated for the annual ceremony of the
blessing of waters on Epiphany Day, January 6, when the Greek
Orthodox Archbishop blesses the spongers’ boats prior to their de-
parture for the Gulf of Mexico. The names of these boats — America,
or Hellas, Roosevelt or Venizelos, Bozzaris or Washington — are in-
dicative of their owners’ devotion to their adopted country, the
United States, and to Greece. The main boulevard of Tarpon
Springs is now called Dodecanese Boulevard.^®
The Greek community of Lowell, Massachusetts, has been a
thriving one for a number of years. Professor William I. Cole esti-
mated a few years ago that it numbered about 12,000 souls. Besides
being the largest aggregation of Greeks in the state of Massachusetts,
it has always ranked among the foremost Greek communities in the
entire United States. Manchester, New Hampshire, has also been
a leading Greek community in New England, but, like other Greek
centers, it is gradually losing its original Hellenic character, now that
members of the older generation are dying in ever-increasing numbers
and no new blood is coming from Greece to take their place.
Greek church and organizations. The vast majority of the Greeks
are of the Eastern Orthodox faith, with very few Protestants and a
sprinkling of Jews, the latter mostly from Epirus. If the number of
Greek Orthodox churches is an index of the strength of the Greek
communities in the United States, it may be said that the Greeks are
doing quite well in this country. Every year new Greek Orthodox
churches and schools are added to those already existing. In 1944,
approximately 250 Greek Orthodox churches came under the fold
of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the jurisdiction of whose head,
the Most Reverend Archbishop Athenagoras, extends over the entire
continent of America — ^North and South.
Although spiritually owing allegiance to the Oecumenical Patri-
archate of Constantinople, and not to the Autocephalous Church of
Louis Adamic, From Many Lands, “The Greeks Came to Tarpon Springs.”
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939.
The Greek Dodecanese, A Symposium by Prominent Americans.
GREEK AMERICANS
251
Greece, the Greek Orthodox Church of America is subject to the
laws of this country, each community being a corporation registered
under the laws of the respective state in which it functions.
It is mainly through the Greek Orthodox Church and its afternoon
or Sunday schools that Greek tradition and Greek language are pre-
served in this country. With the growth of a second generation
of American-bom sons and daughters of Greek-bom parents, priests
are now recruited from the Greek-American communities to prepare
for the priesthood at the Archdiocese’s Theological School of the
Holy Cross at Pomfret Center, Connecticut.
Parallel to the Greek Orthodox churches, around which are cen-
tered most of the religious, educational, and philanthropic activities
of the Greek-American communities, there exist numerous mutual-aid
and other societies which bring the Greeks together. Some of these
organizations have a national scope with chapters throughout the
United States, even in localities where there is no Greek church.
The leading society of this type is the Order of Ahepa (Aonerican
Hellenic Educational Progressive Association), founded in Atlanta,
Georgia, in 1922, and numbering now over three hundred chapters.
Its national headquarters are in Washington, D.C. Ahepa seeks to
bridge the gap between Americans and Greeks and helps the latter to
absorb the American way of life through naturalization and emphasis
on the ideals of American democracy. Membership is open to Amer-
icans of non-Greek descent also, and many prominent Americans,
including President Roosevelt, are members of the order. Two major
war-bond drives were launched by Ahepa during the early years of
World War II, one for $50,000,000, and another for 1 100,000,000;
both of them were fully covered.
While Ahepa lays particular emphasis on Americanization and the
American way of life, another society of a national scope, the GAPA
(Greek American Progressive Association), founded in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, in 1923, although also believing in American ideals, aims
at the perpetuation of the Greek tradition, by cultivating Greek
letters and the Greek Orthodox religion. Membership to GAPA is
limited only to Greeks, and the Greek language is exclusively used
during the meetings. Both of these societies provide scholarships to
youths following higher studies in American educational institutions
and support financially every worth-^while cause relating to the Greeks
in this country. An annual excursion to Greece constitutes one of
the main activities of both societies, each of which publishes its own
periodical, The Ahepan in English, and the Gapa Tribune in Greek.
252 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
The tendency toward regionalism, which has been a characteristic
of the Greeks since ancient times, is finding its expression in the
numerous societies founded by Greeks from one particular province,
island, or town of Greece. Thus, the Arcadians are organized into
the Pan-Arcadian Society, the Cretans have the Pan-Cretan Asso-
ciation, those from Asia Minor the Pan-Micrasiatic, the ones from the
Dodecanese, the Dodecanesian National Council, and the Epirotans,
the Pan-Epirotic Federation of America — to mention the most im-
portant central organizations. Chapters or branches of these societies
are to be found in those cities or towns of the United States where
there are comparatively large numbers of natives from particular
regions or provinces of Greece.
Thus, wMe most of the Spartans and Arcadians are to be found
in the Eastern and Middle Western states, a sizable number of Cretans
live in the state of Utah, and most of the Dodecanesians are in New
York City, Tarpon Springs, Florida, and various towns of the states
of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The Epirotans are centered in
Worcester, Massachusetts, and other localities of New England, with
a goodly number of them also to be found in Chicago.
The purpose of these societies, besides providing aid to their mem-
bers in case of need, is to keep interest alive in their particular place
of origin by remitting funds for the erection of schools, churches, or
public works of which the town or province may be in need. With
the destruction of a large number of towns and villages in Greece by
the Axis invaders, the need for reconstruction became urgent, and
most of the societies embarked on programs of rehef and rehabilitation
of the particular regions from which their members had come.
One of the main activities of the societies whose members came
from the unredeemed parts of the Hellenic world, such as the Dodec-
anese Islands and Northern Epirus, was to work for the liberation of
these regions and their union with Greece. Thus, the Dodecanesian
National Council and the Pan-Epirotic Federation of America,
through publications, press releases, and other similar means, sought to
enlighten American public opinion with regard to the Hellenic char-
acter of those territories.
Similar aims are being pursued by the American Friends of Greece,
an organization comprising a large number of American scholars and
other philhellenes. In one of its most recent publications, Greece of
Tomorrow, Greek national claims are outlined, the contributors being
American professors with a long experience in Greek affairs. Also,
GREEK AMERICANS
253
the National Committee for the Restoration of Greece, whose mem-
bership is Greek or Greek American, is engaging in activities of a
parallel nature, publishing pamphlets on Greece and her contribution
to the common war effort and issuing a news bulletin which is sent
to the press throughout the country.
Occupational organizations of Greeks are not numerous. The
most important are the societies of Greek Florists, Furriers, and
Restaurateurs, whose aim is to further the business interests of their
members. Greek labor is organized into various Union locals
affiliated with the A.F, of L. or the C.I.O. Their members work
mainly in restaurants and hotels or in the fur industry. The Hellenic-
American Fraternal Society, the Greek Branch of the International
Workers Order, comprises thirty lodges, with a membership of ap-
proximately two thousand. Its aims are “the promotion of fraternal-
ism and solidarity; the tightening of the historical bonds between
Greece and the United States; collaboration with other organizations
for the development of Greek culture in the United States.” A
Greek-American Labor Committee is also functioning in New York,
with branches in other cities. This is a political organization, seeking
to support the cause of democracy in Greece and liberal ideas in the
United States. Various Union locals throughout the United States
endorse the activities of this committee.
The Greek War Relief Association, Inc., established in December,
1940, did much to provide succor to the stricken Greek people, both
at the time of the war against the Axis powers and during the enemy
occupation of Greece. Over ten million dollars was collected by
its numerous chapters from coast to coast, prior to its coming under
the fold of the National War Fund.
The Greek press. From Aristotle’s time, the Greeks have been
politically minded, perhaps the most politically minded people in the
world. It was, therefore, only natural that their interest in public
affairs and particularly those of their motherland should be maintained
constantly alive. Greek-language newspapers made their appearance
in the United States over fifty years ago, and, alongside news from
Greece, they provided a picture of life in the various Greek com-
munities that were graduaUy developing in this country. The polit-
ical differences that divided the Greek people in Greece found their
echo in the editorials and news dispatches of the Greek-American
press. Only a limited number of publications managed to stand aloof
while the majority of the papers vigorously fought in favor of or
254 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
against the monarchy. Similarly, in 1944, some papers supported the
EAM resistance movement in Greece while others vociferously op-
posed it.
The oldest Greek newspaper in existence is the daily Atlantis ^ which
in 1944 completed fifty years of fife. Its views are conservative, and
it is mostly read by Greek immigrants from the Peloponnesos and
other parts of the mainland of Greece where the monarchy had most
of its supporters. Although it claims to be an “American” paper,
writing for American citizens of Greek descent, it takes sides in every
controversy relating to Greek politics. In American politics Atlantis
has been consistently Republican.
Liberal views on both Greek politics and American affairs have been
supported by the National Herald, a daily founded in 1915. Liberal
and antimonarchic views were finding their most vociferous expression
in the columns of this paper at the time the conflict between Venizelos
and King Constantine was at its height in the 1910’s. Again, during
World War II, it became the mouthpiece of Greek liberalism with
its support of the EAM resistance movement and its opposition to
the re-establishment of the monarchy in Greece.
The labor point of view is expressed by the Greek-American
Tribune, which is the successor of such papers as the Eleftheria and
Empros. This weekly is the mouthpiece of organized Greek-Amer-
ican labor centered around the Greek Maritime Unions, the Fur
Workers Unions, and the Greek Branch of International Workers
Order. Four of its twenty pages are printed in English, and great
emphasis is laid on the support of democratic ideals. These three
papers exert real influence on their readers, reflecting as they do three
different points of view.
Numerous other publications appear in Greek, but their importance
is secondary. The following papers are the best known: California
of San Francisco (royalist in Greek politics) , a weekly; the Chicago
Greek Press, a weekly of moderate views, interested mostly in the
defense of Greek rights; the Chicago Greek Star, a weekly which
has consistently supported Metaxas’ dictatorship; the Detroit Athens,
a weekly of conservative leanings; the LoweU Greek-American, a
weekly of conservative views; the Free Press, a weekly appearing in
New York, also exclusively dealing with Greek politics, opposed to
the monarchy but vigorously anticommunist; the Ameriki, a “labour”
weekly of recent vintage, reflecting views such as the ones advocated
by the socialist Neax) Leader, whose articles it often reprints; The
Ahepan, the bi-monthly organ of the Order of Ahepa, printed entirely
jn English, and not taking sides, although enthusiastically supporting
GREEK AMERICANS
255
American democratic ideals; and the Chicago Athene, “the American
Magazine of Hellenic Thought,” also entirely in English, beautifully
illustrated and with articles relating to Greek culture and thought,
most of which are contributed by distinguished American scholars.
Contnhiitiom to American Life
Although the vast majority of the Greek immigrants came to the
United States with little else but their desire to work and improve
their social and economic condition, the Greeks, in the relatively short
period of their life here, have proved to be a valuable asset in their
respective communities. Hard-working and thrifty, they set as their
primary aim to give a higher education to their sons and daughters;
and this fact explains the large number of youths of Greek descent
following studies in American educational institutions. On the other
hand, numerous Greek scholars are teaching in American universities
and colleges, the best known of them being Dr. Papanicolaou of the
Medical School of Cornell University; Dr. Raphael Demos, professor
of philosophy at Harvard University; Professors Emile Malakis and
Panos Morphopoulos of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Maryland; Professor Michael Dorizas of the University of Pennsyl-
vania; and Professor Michael Choukas of Dartmouth College, Han-
over, New Hampshire.
In the realm of music, the name of Dimitri Mitropoulos, the world-
renowned orchestra conductor, is now ranking alongside the names
of Koussevitzky, Toscanini, and Stokowski. For a number of years
head of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Mitropoulos has been
also a guest conductor of practically every important symphony
orchestra of this country, including the Boston, New York, and
Philadelphia orchestras, and during the eight years of his activities
in the United States he has done much to further American music
by presenting for the first time to American audiences the composi-
tions of leading American composers.
Nicholas Moscona, the Greek basso, has been singing for a number
of years at the Metropolitan Opera House of New York and in other
leading musical centers of this country, includmg Cincinnati, San
Francisco, and Philadelphia. Lorenzo Camilieri, director of the
People’s Chorus of New York for a fuU quarter of a century,
has furthered the cause of fine music among the masses; the two
annual concerts of his Chorus are among the most popular in New
York.
The works of painters of Greek extraction are gradually making
their way into leading American museums . George Constant is repr e-
256 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
sented both at the Metropohtan Museum of Art and the Chicago Art
Institute. Nassos Daphnis’s canvases are to be found at the Baltimore
Museum of Art, the Buffalo Albright Art Gallery, and the Portland
Oregon Museum. John Xceron, an internationally famed non-
objective painter, is considered one of the leading American artists in
that field of painting, and his works are to be found at the Museum
of Modem Art and the Museum of Non-Objective Paintings, New
York, and in other institutions of similar standing. Aristodimos
Kaldis, a vigorous painter of the Greek landscape, is also represented in
well-known galleries, including that of the Barnes Foundation at
Merion, Pennsylvania. Constantine Pougialis, Alexander Sideris,
Demetrios Kokotsis, and George Steris have been praised for their
work by exacting critics, and Polygnotos Vagis occupies a top-rank-
ing position in American sculpture.
The Greeks have also distinguished themselves in the theater and
the motion pictures. George Coulouris and Elia Kazan, both of
whom are well known on Broadway and in Holl3rwood, are of Greek
origin. Katina Paxinou, who scored a tremendous success in the film
For Whom the Bells Tolls, is a later addition to the roster of artists
from Greece. She belongs to the category of Greeks who reached
these shores because of World War II.
This new Greek immigration of the World War II period, although
relatively not numerous, can and surely will play an important role
in strengthening the ties between the United States and Greece.
Mostly consisting of wealthy shipowners and merchants, these new
arrivals have the means to get acquainted with the best that America
can offer, so that on their return to Greece, they and their American-
educated offspring may spread the American ideals of democracy and
aU the latest achievements of American technical science. The few
other Greeks who came to this country in recent years are intellec-
tuals, journalists, and educators, some of whom had their secondary
education in American educational institutions of the Near East.
Inspired by the democratic ideals of the United States, they have
hoped that, with the cessation of political strife in Greece, these same
ideals will work as smoothly there as they do here.
The Greeks have proved to be among the most law-abiding citizens
of foreign extraction, an element of progress and order, loyal to
their adopted country, though never forgetting their motherland.
During World War I, about 100,000 Greek immigrants, man y
recent arrivals from Greece and Asia Minor, served in the American
Army and Navy, One of them, George Dilboy, became a foremost
ITALIAN AMERICANS
257
American hero, dying in battle in France and receiving a posthumous
award of the Congressional Medal of Honor. In Somerville, Massa-
chusetts, there is a statue' in his memory. A still larger number of
Greek Americans, many of them American-bom sons and daughters
of veterans of World War I, served in World War II all over the
world in the armed forces of the United States. Many were high-
ranking officers and hundreds of them died in battle, were wounded
or missing. Ensign Gus George Bebas, of Mfilmette, Illinois, was an
outstanding hero, having distinguished himself as a Naval flier serving
on the carrier Hornet.
The public spiritedness of the Greeks is manifested by their gen-
erous contributions to every worthy cause. Besides subscribing for
hundreds of millions of dollars to the war-bond drives, they con-
tributed to the drives of the United War Fund and the American Red
Cross sums exceeding in actual dollars and cents those given by other
ethnic groups, some of which are numerically two or three times larger
than the Greek group.
After a long and unrelenting resistance, the people of Greece, with
assistance from the outside, have succeeded in liberating their country
— ^which they so proudly consider to be the cradle of democracy —
from the yoke of the foreign oppressors. Their brothers in the
United States, by their valuable contributions to the war effort of
the United States, have given unmistakable proofs of their steadfast
devotion to the higher ideals of American democracy. It is only
natural, therefore, that the Greek people, both here and in Greece,
besides the generous aid now being provided by the United States
for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Greece, should look for-
ward to the revision of the Greek immigration quota, which is as
low as 312 persons a year, so that new Greek blood may enter the
United States and continue the constructive work that the Greek
immigrants have accomplished in the half century of their existence
here.
C. ITALIAN AMERICANS
Francis J. Brown
Italy, smaller in size than almost any one of our western states, has
contributed a laj^er number of immigrants to American shores than
has any other nation in the world, with the single exception of Ger-
many. In 1940, there were more Itahan-bom Americans than immi-
grants from any other country. In terms of numbers, total immigra-
258 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
tion from 1820 to June 30, 1943, was 4,719,825. The number of
Italian Americans, in 1940, who were bom in Italy was 1,623,580 or
14.2 per cent of the total foreign-bom whites in the United States.
There were, also, in 1940, 2,971,200 native bom whose parents were
bom in Italy. Of these by far the largest number, 2,595,000, were
of parents both of whom had been Italian bom. Combining foreign
born and native bom of foreign parents, we find that one in every
eight of the total foreign white stock was an Italian.
Immigration
Space does not permit the tracing of the records of the small but
significant number of Italians who joined the Spanish, Dutch, English,
and French in early exploration and colonization. Largely of the
Cathohc faith, they readily affiliated with the Spanish and French,
and many entered the more liberal colonies, such as Maryland. Sev-
eral hundred Itahan Catholics, Protestants, and Jews had joined other
English and Dutch colonies prior to the Revolution.
The numbers remained small, however, until after the middle of
the nineteenth century. Only 450 arrived during the first decade of
the census, 1820-1830, and in 1850 there were less than 4,000 Italians
in a total population of 23,000,000. Coming largely from the pros-
perous, industrial areas of northern Italy, these first immigrants were
importers, musicians, singers, artisans, political exiles, priests, and mis-
sionaries. By 1850, the urge to come to America had reached lower
in the economic scale, and the vanguard of vendors and organ grinders
began to arrive.
It was not until 1880, ten years after the unification of Italy, that
the number began to rise in any significant proportion. In the decade
1871 to 1880, during which more than two and a quarter million
immigrants arrived from Europe, only 50,000 came from Italy.
Within two decades that number had multiplied eleven times, and in
the next ten years it was 25 per cent greater than that of any nation
in any ten-year period, 2,045,877. In a single year, 300,000 Italians
came to our shores — ^more than the entire population of one of Italy’s
most important cities, Venice.
The number declined during the depression of 1907, but turned
upward again and once more reached the peak of 300,000. When
the first World War broke out, the number dropped back to the 1870
level. Jt rose sharply again after the war to more than 200,000 in
1921, hut the quota systems established by the immigration laws of
1921 and 1924 brought the rise to an abrupt end and reduced the
ITALIAN AMERICANS
259
number once more to the 1870 figures. It is interesting to note,
however, that during the five-year period, from July i, 1938, to June
30, 1943, 13,436 Italians came to America — a number exceeded only
by Germany (80,022), Canada (40,636), and Poland (20,794).
Emigration
Any statement of immigration is incomplete without including
emigration. This is especially true of Italian migration. As pointed
out elsewhere, no statistics of emigration were kept by the Census
Bureau prior to 1908. In that one year, however, approximately
160,000 Italians — ^more than half as many as arrived in the same year
— returned to their native land. Figure 5 shows the relationship of
ITALIAN IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1820-1940, AND
EMIGRATION FROM THE U. S. TO ITALY, 1908-1940, BY YEARS*
HUNDRED
THOUSANDS
Figure 5
* Data from U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Immigration and Naturaliza-
tion, Philadelphia, Pa,
these two movements of population from 1908 to 1943. While pre-
dictions are always hazardous, it may be assumed that the major flow
of Italians, at least in the immediate postwar years, will be out rather
than in. This will be especially true if opportunities for employment
are less here than in the reconstruction period of their war-tom native
coimtry.
Characteristics of immigrants. Equally important with the rise
ip numbers was the change in the character of the majority of Italian
immigrants. As previously stated, most of the first immigrants were
artisans from northern cities in Italy. As word of the opportunities
in the land at the rainbow’s end came back, it spread southward along
260 “NEW” LMMIGRATION; SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
the Poe, past Rome, and down into the southern provinces, into Sicily
and the lesser islands. It traveled across the Pyrenees to the shores
of the Adriatic. No longer was the appeal only to artisans, but the
humblest merchant left his shop, the peasant his vineyard, fired by
advertisements paid for by American firms and with transportation
provided in return for contracted labor in America. Whole villages
moved almost en masse as the people hurried to ports of debarkation
and took passage in the steerage.
The writer will never forget his earliest glimpse of the immigrant
at first hand. Coming from a small community in the Middle West,
where the only “foreigners” were the Mexican section hands on the
railroad, he stood in the receiving room at Ellis Island. What a
motley array of humanity! Three fourths were men, for, as from
most of the eastern and southern European countries, the men came
first. They spoke a jargon of many tongues, were dressed in the
picturesque suits of their native provinces, and carried their luggage
in every conceivable container from gunny sack to battered bag.
Only rarely was there one who gave evidence of coming from pros-
perous circumstances.
Although the writer was then only curiously interested in national
minorities, that picture has remained clear and distinct. How many
of the thousands of those who were lined up in long rows behind
iron partitions waiting their turn for clearance were Italians, it would
be hard to say; but in that glimpse there was something, at least, of
the whole story of these later arrivals from Italy. From every walk
of life, they had come to America to find their “pot of gold”; for,
unlike those from many of the other countries, neither political unrest
nor reUgious persecution had prompted their decision.
Cziltziral Differentiation and Assimilation
Those who came from foreign countries brought with them much
of their old-world heritage. It is true that the outward symbol was
dress, but this was only superficial and could be changed overnight.
The heritage of the homeland was deeper, more meaningful, more
to be retained than a shawl or the many long flowing skirts. This
heritage was in the very woof of community and family life.
Italian backgrounds. For the most part, the great bulk of those
from southern Italy, especially, had lived in self-contained commuy
nities; except for traveling peddlers and tinkers, few goods or services
had come from the outside. Their language was a distinctive dialect.
Peasant dress also was frequently distinctive, and that for fiestas and
ITALIAN AMERICANS
261
other occasions was handed down from one generation to another.
Young people seldom were permitted to marry anyone from outside
the village. The people tilled their tiny fields, kept open their shops,
or plied their trade as simple artisans. The village square was the
gathering place of the community, where goods were exchanged by
barter in the open markets, where folk dances were held, and where
friends and neighbors met to discuss politics or to enjoy small talk
regarding common acquaintances.
The church was the center of religious and social life, and fiestas
would extend for days, sometimes, almost merging one into another.
The high light of many of them was the procession of the saint,
paraded through the streets on a platform frequently borne on the
backs of willing participants.
This sense of unity was fostered further by family organization.
Basic to family life was the principle of primogeniture — ^the line of
authority through the oldest male, be he grandfather, father, or son.
To him, the entire family looked for answers to all questions of policy,
including approval of whom the members of the family could marry,
and, for the daughters, all arrangements regarding dowry.
The rearing of a family — and it was almost always large — ^was a
serious matter. Until after the turn of the present century, few chil-
dren attended school, even though compulsory education was estab-
lished soon after the unification of Italy in 1870. But children were
early imbued with all the traditions of community and family life —
how to live in honor and in dignity within its pattern. Almost from
birth, girls were taught their roles as future wives and mothers, not
by precept alone, but by taking their share of the work of the house-
hold and by long hours spent in sewing and embroidering the garments
for their “hope chests.” Theirs was a carefully chaperoned life in
which a shy glance at a stranger, noted by observing neighbors, might
lessen the chances for makmg a good marriage. Sons were early
taught such simple skills as were needed by breadwinners and by the
oldest son to carry on his father’s occupation, if an artisan or merchant.
Immediate problems of adjustment. With this background as an
integral part of their lives, they came to America. What a disillusion-
ing experience awaited tihe great majority of them! They learned
quickly that money and not barter was the method of exchange.
Few found their simple skills wanted or needed in the new land.
Only their brawn and their patient toil were in demand. They
accepted jobs wholly unfamiliar to them in the homeland and worked
grueMng hours for low wages. They had no reserve with which to
262 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
buy land or to open a shop. Some, working on the docks, bought
small quantities of fruits and vegetables or other nonperishable com-
modities and peddled them from open carts. They lived in cheap
rooming houses and frugally saved to send money back home to
bring the family over.
To preserve something of their old-world life, they settled in areas
with other Italians, frequently groups from the same village Hving
in the same tenement. Little Itdys such as the Cherry and Mulberry
Street areas of Manhattan sprang up in every city. Dependent
whoUy on the meager wages of unskilled labor, they moved into the
areas left vacant by previous immigrant groups, especially the Irish
and the Germans, who had moved up a rung on the economic ladder.
The father was no longer able to support the family, and so boarders
and roomers were taken into the already overcrowded flat. Boys,
often only small children, peddled papers, ran errands, and blacked
shoes. Women and litde daughters substituted flower making and
sewing buttons on coarse garments for the patient embroidering for
the “hope ehest.” Women even broke the age-old tradition and
worked in factories and basement rooms, producing “sweat-shop”
goods on a piece-work basis. Congestion became almost unbelievable.
In 1930, 75,000 Itahans lived within sixty city blocks in East Harlem
in New York City.
Distribution. Where did they go, this flood of foreigners seeking
new homes, this vast army of peasants, 66 per cent of whom had been
agriculturalists in their homeland and 25 per cent skilled artisans?
Almost all of them arrived in the port of New York — more than one
million never went further. In 1940, after more than a decade of
little migration, there were 1,095,000 Italian Americans living in
New York City, of whom 409,489 were foreign bom. In 1930 the
number of foreign bom was 440,255. Many other millions either
moved on after a brief stay in New York or went directly to the city
to which their predecessors from the home village had migrated.
Employment agencies operated on a wholesale basis and sent whole
trainloads to areas where unskilled labor was needed. A compara-
tively few returned to the soil, but the great majority established
“Little Italys” in almost every American city with a population of
25,000 or more. In several of them, Italian Americans comprised
from 10 to 25 per cent of the total population. In Lodi, New York,
they comprised 59 per cent of the population in 1930.
An analysis of Table XV (page 648), reveals a number of significant
facts. There is a very considerable degree of mobiflty among those
ITALIAN AMERICANS
2(53
of Italian stock. During the ten years 1931 to 1940, the number in
New York, Newark, and Philadelphia showed significant decrease
while that in Buffalo, Chicago, and Detroit increased proportionately.
This fact is even more pronounced in regard to the Italian bom; for
example, while the number in Buffalo declined approximately 7,000,
in Chicago it increased by r 3,000.
Of further interest is the varying percentage of the total foreign
stock who are of Italian extraction; from 4.4 per cent and 4.8 per cent
in Milwaukee and Seattle respectively to 32.7 per cent in Newark,
and 35.8 per cent in Providence. In general, however, there tends
to be definite centralization of Italians in certain communities, as the
percentage of total foreign stock who are Italian in such cities averages
approximately 20 per cent as compared with a total national average
of 13.3 per cent.
For the most part, these data can be explained by the fact that the
vast majority of Italian Americans have not risen above the level of
unskilled labor. Consequently, they shift with varying employment
opportunities. A further fact is that they have not, in many cases,
established roots in their new community and prefer to go to areas
where there are already large numbers of their copatriots.
One further statement should be made lest the above analysis give
a false impression. Italian Americans have spread from the landing
ports to every state in the Union. In 1940 there were, to select only
a few states, in Alabama, 5,319; California, 100,910; Connecticut,
329,373; Illinois, 27o,864;New Jersey, 499,383; New York, 1,596,805;
and Wyoming, 3,115. Some of these people have established them-
selves in smaller, more rural communities, such as Vineland and Ham-
monton, New Jersey; Rockville, Connecticut; Cape Cod, Massa-
chusetts; Monroe and Canastota, New York, and Lambert and
Daphne, Alabama, to name only a few.
The number living on farms and in communities of less than 2,500
is smaller than for any other nationality group except the Greeks.
The 1940 census shdws 88.5 per cent living in urban communities,
9.4 per cent rural nonfarm (communities less than 2,500), and only
2.(5 per cent on farms. And this, in spite of the fact, as stated pre-
viously, that 66 per cent were agricultural workers on the hills and
in the narrpw vdleys of their native country!
Later problems of adjustment. The sharp contrast between all
that the Italian immigrants knew and valued in the homeland and their
experiences in America created both immediate and long-range prob-
lems of adjustment. The former were discussed earlier in this
264 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
chapter. The latter adjustments are still being made with all the ten -
sions inherent in the rapid social and economic changes forced upon
the immigrants.
The most important of these adjustments is in that of family rela-
tionships. No credence is placed in primogeniture in America, and
each child has equal responsibility and privilege; girls are free to go
about unchaperoned and to earn their own livelihood; authority and
discipline are replaced, in part, by discussion and cooperation; old-
world customs and fiestas have little value in the heterogeneous popu-
lation of an American community. While their elders reluctantly
and gradually made superficial changes — adopted American dress,
learned a little English, and some took out first citizenship papers —
their children wished and sought to be Americans.
The children attended American schools and resented the continued
use of Italian in their homes; they chafed at the disciplines of the old
world and tended to flaunt their new freedom; girls insisted on enjoy-
ing the privileges of their schoolmates, selected their friends and even
their husbands without parental approval, and frequently those
chosen were non-Italians; the young people defied old-world tradi-
tions and customs; they danced to modem tunes rather than the folk
music dear to their parents; for many, there was a lessening of their
sense of dependence upon the church.
While the extent of this conflict between the first and second and
even the third generation varied widely with families and commu-
nities, it was inevitable that the elders should berate the “wildness”
of the young people and that youth should, with equal vigor, disparage
the values and standards of conduct of their parents. A considerable
number of the second generation AngHcized both their first and last
names.
The school, inadvertently perhaps, tended to abet this conflict.
English was insisted on in the classroom. Children were urged to
adopt American habits of dress and of food, which were held up as
superior to those of the old world. Parents were asked to come to
the school only as a means of disciplining the child. Gradually, how-
ever, a different attitude and policy developed among educators.
They recognized that elders, too, sought to adjust themselves to the
new ways of America and that the old world had much to contribute
to the children and to the community. With this change, immigrant
classes were established for adults and children were encouraged to
value the contributions of their elders.
Conflict continues and will characterize the behavior problems of
ITALIAN AMERICANS 265
another generation, but it is now becoming less acute and will continue
to lessen as each generation becomes more American.
Naturalization. One indication of assimilation is the rate and
promptness of becoming citizens. The 1940 census indicates that
Italians fall only 2.x per cent below the national average of 64.6 per
cent for all foreign-bom groups. This is an increase of 1 2 per cent
during the decade 1931 to 1940.
The press. Of all the foreign-language publications in America,
those in Italian are fourth in number and in circulation. In 1919
there were 190 with a circulation of 800,000; in 1943 there were 117,
with an approximate circulation of 522,883.
The first Italian newspaper was founded in 1849 and its name,
L’Eco dUtalia, reflected its purpose. It was a weekly published in
New York City, but like many a similar first venture, it was short-
lived. The leading Italian daily today is the ll Progresso Italo-
Americano, founded in New York in 1 888. It has an English section,
but the bulk of its ten-page daily and sixteen-page Sunday edition is
in Italian. Other important publications include 11 Corriore d’ Amer-
ica and La Stampa Libera.
The Italian press has, like other foreign-language newspapers, modi-
fied its editorial policy to meet the varying status of the home country;
these adjustments have not been easy to make because of the fluem-
ating policy of the Italian government.
Organizations. One of the important elements of homeland cul-
mre that could be transplanted was that of fraternal, social, religious,
and political organizations. A dominant type was the mumal-aid
societies — ^ kind of group benefit insurance. Perhaps, unformnately,
the failure of this kind of organization to adapt itself to the different
economic conditions in America have led to its gradual and almost
complete elimination among the Italians. Another type which
blended social and religious values was centered around the church.
The congrega of the villages in Sicily or Basilicata were revived in
the new community dedicated to Maria of the Rosary, St. Joseph, or
San Calagero.
As the years passed, a movement developed to unify all Italian
societies into one national order. Dr. Vincent Sellars was one of
the chief promoters of the movement, which began about 1900. The
Order of the Sons of Italy was organized, but a few years later a
schism developed and the group that broke off called themselves the
Independent Order of the Sons of Italy. The purposes of both na-
tional ox^anizations, to be carried on through their local chapters,
266 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
were: to keep alive the culture of the homeland, to encourage the
continued knowledge and use of the Italian language, and to prepare
their members for American citizenship. By 1925, hundreds of thou-
sands of first- and second-generation Italians were members of the
several thousand local chapters of these organizations.
Religion. The importance of the church in the Hfe of the Italian
in his native land created a deep sense of loss when the first large
stream arrived in America. Although the majority were Catholics
and many Catholic churches had been founded, the similarity of
service contrasted with the unfamiliarity of the people and surround-
ings did not keep the immigrant from feeling a sense of strangeness
even in the worship of his God. In his homeland, the parish priest
knew the members of his congregation and took a personal interest
in each. Here, the priest could not even speak his language, and in
the vast movement of peoples the individual was scarcely or not at
all known to the priest. Some tended to drift away from the church;
others organized Italian congregations and procured a priest of their
own tongue.
At Piacenza, an institute was founded to train missionaries to work
among the Italian immigrants in America. In 1888 the first so trained
came to the United States and began work in many cities through the
country. Other religious orders also took similar steps, including
Franciscans (both monks and nuns), Salesians, the Sisters of Mother
Cabrini, and the Pallotine Sisters; and later a branch of the Italica Gens
was founded in America.
ItaHan Protestants tended more than Catholics to affiliate with
churches of their own denomination having a mixed national con-
gregation. However, evangelical missions, churches, and schools
sought to serve the Italian immigrants and their second-generation
children.
In many Italian-American communities the fiesta is still celebrated
almost unchanged from that conducted in the shadow of the Pyrenees.
But for the young people, who have no memories beyond America,
fiesta is losing its significance, though religion itself may be as potent
a factor in their lives as its ritual is to their parents.
Adjustments in World War II. When Mussolini came to power
in 1922, a small number of Italian Americans endorsed the new gov-
ernment. As glowing accounts of public works and other improve-
ments were brought back by relatives and friends, the number who
approved increased, as it did also among the general population. The
ITALIAN AMERICANS 267
current judgment among the Italians was that Mussolini was good for
Italy, but not for America.
When Italy attacked Ethiopia, the sentiment began to' shift among
the majority of Itahans in America. They did not concur in Musso-
lini’s dream of empire and resented his slurring remarks about Amer-
ica, for, as new citizens, they knew what America had meant to them.
Despite efforts to induce them to return to Italy, only a small number
did so.
An almost unprecedented situation occurred, however, when the
United States declared war on Italy in 1942. Nearly 600,000 foreign-
bom and unnaturalized Italians became “alien enemies.” They were
restricted and put under surveillance, but after ten months of watch-
ing, on Columbus Day, 1942, United States Attorney-General Biddle
announced, “Out of the total of 600,000, there has been cause to intern
only 228 or fewer than one twentieth of i per cent! Italian ahens
will no longer be classed as ahen enemies. They will be free to travel
and to go about their Hves as any other person.” In this statement
was expressed a trust and confidence seldom equaled, and Italian
Americans responded in enthusiastic support of every phase of total
war.
Contributions to American Life"^
The contributions of those of Itahan origin have been continuous,
though space permits only a cursory reference to early explorers and
missionaries and a selected summary of the contributions of only a
few who have given so much to our modern life in America.
Rehgious educational instirations were founded in New France and
New Spain by Itahan missionaries and priests. Perhaps the two most
outstanding priests were Father Eusebio Chino and Father Marco
da Nizza. The former traveled to the west coast; the latter was
with the Coronado expedition and went as far west as Nebraska.
Father Chinn did more than explore and erect churches for the Indians
he converted. He taught the Indians trades and European farming
methods and helped in the establishment of the stock-raising industry.
Americus Vespucius, who gave his name to America, was of Italian
origin as was, of course, Christopher Columbus.
^ With some modifications, this section is reproduced from the first edition of this
book, and was originally prepared by Leonard Covello, principal of Benjamin
Franklin High School in New York City, and an editor of the Casa Italiana publica-
tions.
268 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
Art atid music. The material in hand shows how largely Italians
have been represented in many fields of endeavor. In the sphere of
art and music, in particular, the immigrant and his children have
achieved desirable positions. Among artists whose work has com-
manded national attention may be mentioned Cappellano, Persico,
Brumidi, Costaginni, Amateis, Franzoni, Valperti, Causici, Trenta-
nove, and Vincenti. Their genius found notable expression in the
adornment of the Capitol at Washington. Of these, Brumidi, per-
haps, is the best known. He was called “the Michael Angelo of the
Capitol,” and left behind him the famous Capitol frescoes “Storia del
America,” “Washington at Yorktown,” “L’Apoteosi de Washington,”
and “Cincinnato all ’aratro.” It was he who painted the “Crocefis-
sione,” considered the greatest oil painting of its time.
Amateis, who died in 1920, made the bronze doors of the national
Capitol. Franzoni designed and executed the bronze clock in the
Capitol with the statue of “Storia” on its top. The emblematic eagle
in the Capitol was sculptured by Valperti. The statue, “Liberty
Proclaiming Peace,” is the work of Causici. The “Pere Marquette”
statue in the House of Representatives was done by Trentanove; the
“Indian Chief, Be-She-Ke,” by Vincenti. The statues “Marta” and
“Cerere” are by Cappellano. Persico sculptured the groups “H Genio
d’Americo” and “Scoperta del Nuovo Mondo.”
Other Italian sculptors who are well known in art circles are
Onorio Ruotolo and Attilio Piccirilli, the “stone-cutter” who was
chosen by the New York Journal as the artist for the “Monument to
the Martyrs of the Maine.” His many other works are too well
known to be listed here. He has received many honors, among them
awards from the Academia del Pantheon di Roma, the National Sculp-
ture Society, the Architectural League of New York, and the Na-
tional Academy. He was the first Italian artist to receive such recog-
nition. It is also interesting to note here that an Italian, Luigi Palma
di Cesnola, archeologist, collector, and lover of art, was appointed
director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the first year of its
history.
In the noncreative sphere of art, it may be noted that some of the
outstanding art galleries are owned and directed by Italians and that
there are many art dealers of importance who are Italian. Likewise,
some of the most noted art jewelers in the United States are Italians.
The largest foundry in the United States for the casting of fine art
work is owned by Commendatore Riccardo Bertelli.
ITALIAN AMERICANS
269
The field of music is so broad and the range of Italian influence so
wide that it cannot be covered here. Mention may be made, how-
ever, of the fact that the first orchestra in the United States was
founded by an Italian and that the first orchestra leader and director of
the Metropolitan Opera House was an Italian. The Metropohtan was
opened in 1883, with Cleofante Campanini as orchestra leader. In
1895 Luigi Mancinelli succeeded him.
In the world of opera, Italian singers are pre-eminent. The list of
those who have acquired fame in the United States is very long. It
includes Enrico Caruso, Tetrazzini, Adelina Patti, Antonio Scotti,
Rosa Ponselle, Rosa Raisa, Amelita Galli-Curci, Giovanni Martinelli,
Guiseppe de Luca, Tito Schipa, Tito Ruffo, Beniamini Gigli, Pasquale
Amato, and many others.
The group of leaders and directors of opera includes notable names
such as Arturo Vigna, Rodolfo Ferrari, Roberto Moranzoni, Gennaro
Papi, Giulio Setti, (iino Marinuzzi (a composer also), Francesco
Cimino, Attico Bemabini, Fortunato Gallo, Italo Montezzi, and the
incomparable Arturo Toscanini. Nor should one forget Giuho
Gatti-Casazza, whose name was almost synonymous with that of the
Metropolitan for so many years.
Before the Metropohtan Opera House existed, the Academy of
Music was opened in 1854 by Italians for the presentation of Itahan
music and, in 1883, an Italian opera house was opened. Among
librettists, it is interesting to call attention to Lorenzo da Ponte,
librettist for Mozart, who opened the first store for opera hbrettos in
the United States. He was also the first to sell imported books in
New York pty.
Commerce mi indtistry. Turning from art and music to com-
merce and industry, one finds Italians conspicuous in these spheres
also. Antonio Zucca, pioneer in imports from Italy, began his busi-
ness in the United States in 1850. Between 1850 and 1855 one finds
the names of Fratelh Fabricotti, dealing in marble and alabaster;
Conte, stuffs and materials; Fratelli Pia, tin and pewter toys; Morelli,
restaurants; and Meucci, who operated the tallow-candle factory in
which Garibaldi worked while liviug in New York City and awaiting
the moment when the success of the Risorgimento in Italy would give
him enduring fame.
In 1885, the Itahan Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1883 by
Professor Alessandro Oldrini, was incorporated. In 1890, the Itahan
Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco was established. In 1919,
270 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
on November 6, the Italian Chamber of Labor was established in
New York City. Its aim was to organize Italian workers into labor
unions.
The categories of Italian industry in the United States include,
among others, tailors, barbers, bakers, painters (house painters) , deco-
rators, carpenters, weavers, printers, mechanics, and makers of musical
instruments. In fact, there is today scarcely an industry to which
Italians have not contributed.
Italians are among the youngest of our “new” immigrants, yet
within a span of little more than half a century they have made lasting
contributions to America. The great majority are not known as
individuals, for theirs has been a gift of brawn and patient labor.
One cannot ride a train or drive on trunk highways without traveling
over roadbeds laid by Italian labor. Skyscrapers and industrial estab-
lishments were built by Italian hands. Mines and forests, factories
and retail establishments, require the services of many who are un-
named but whose labor provides essential services.
Still in the lower level of our economy, many have risen above it,
and their names are known among the galleries of the great. Others,
too, will rise. All that is needed — ^but this is much — ^is the great
understanding, the larger opportunity, that appreciation of their value
will justly bring.
D. SPANISH AMERICANS
Francis J. Brown
To the average individual, any reference to the Spaniard in Anier-
ica recalls the “bloody trails of Coronado” with his men in shining
armor in a ruthless quest for gold. The English are recalled from
history texts as men of religious fervor coming on a courageous voyage
to carve their homes from the wilderness; the French, as devout mis-
sionaries seeking to convert the Indians to Christianity.
While each is true, it is true only in part, and in each group were
those prompted by each of the three motives. The failure to recog-
nize this fact is more unfortunate in the instance of the Spaniards
than for either of the others, as it deprecates the patient courageous
labor of those early Spanish pioneers and missionaries.
A century before the landings on Plymouth Rock, Spanish ex-
plbrers, colonists, and missionaries had landed in Mexico, and by the
late 1500’s Mexico City, its capital, had become a wealthy center of
culture and of learning with a university already a half-century old.
SPANISH AMERICANS
271
The wilderness had been explored and prosperous mining towns
established.
It was in 1598 that Juan de Onate received permission from the
king of Spain to cross the Rio Grande. A little band of 1 36 pushed
its way northward. The record of their journeys is found written
in Spanish on Inscription Rock in northwest New Mexico: “Passed
by here the officer Don Juan de Onate to the discovery of the sea
to the south on the i6th of April, 1605.” The record is more than
a mere inscription in stone, it is a monument to the early history of
our Southwest and, more especially, of southern California, Arizona,
New Mexico, and western Texas. In later years missions were estab-
lished eastward to Florida and as far north as Virginia, joining with
missions founded by the Spaniards who had come directly across the
Atlantic. With the decline of Spain as a world power, new mis-
sionary efforts both in Florida and in the West virtually ceased. But
the missionaries who remained continued their labors in the Southwest
and, despite Indian uprisings, churches and settlements were rebuilt.
The imprint of Spain was left so deeply embedded that its heritage
characterizes much of the life of these areas even today.
Exploration and settlement also ended with the defeat of the
Spanish Armada, but the Spaniards had remade the geography of the
Americas and had brought into its empire vast stretches of North,
Central, and South America, including nearly half of our own terri-
tory.
Immigration
For the Spaniards, more than any other nationality group, there is
a long gap between their important place in the earliest American
history and the time when Spanish immigration assumed important
significance in modem America. It is not to be implied by this state-
ment that all immigration ceased but rather that for nearly two hun-
dred years it was significant neither in its character nor its number.
The largest number to migrate to America in any decade from 1820
to 1900 was 9,298 during the period 1851 to i860; the lowest was
2,125 during 1831-1840; and the average for the seven decades was
approximately .5,000. This is in sharp contrast to the immigration
from other European countries, which, during the same period,
reached more than a half million in a single decade from Austria-
Hungary, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, and Russia.
The new immigration from Spain increased to approximately 28,000
during the years 1891 to 1900, and to 68,500 in the succeeding decade.
272 “NEW” IMMIGRATION; SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
This was the highest peak of new arrivals, and the number dropped
back in the decade 1921-1930 to 29,000, because of the immigration
laws. During each year, from June 30, 1931 to the same date 1936,
emigration exceeded immigration. In the years from 1936 to June
30, 1943, except for 1940, the trend reversed, but the numbers were
too small to be important. For the total thirteen-year period, only
6,011 came to the United States while 20,112 left America for Spain,
lured, for the most part, by the desire to participate in one side or
the other of the Spanish Civil War.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
The problems of Spanish Americans can be understood only if
three facts are born continually in mind. The first has been empha-
sized earlier: differentiation between the descendants of the Spanish
colonists and the new immigration. The second is the tendency to
group all Spanish-speaking together as one national minority. Noth-
ing could be further from the truth. It is estimated that there are be-
tween two and a half and three miUion people in the United States for
whom Spanish is the native language, although the 1 940 census gives the
number for whom Spanish is the “mother tongue” as 1,861,400. The
largest concentration is in New Mexico with two fifths of the popula-
tion spealdng Spanish. Of these groups, approximately 250,000 are
Spanish colonials, including the new immigrants. The others are
Mexicans, Latin Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and small groups
from other Spanish-speaking areas. The third fact, in some respects
more true of the Spanish than of the early colonials, is that although
they have intermarried with other groups, they have kept their own
language and customs.
Any analysis of cultural differentiation and assimilation must be
based on a recognition of these facts, and any program for the im-
provement of the status of Spanish Americans must be differentiated
in terms of the varying problems of each group.
The early Spanish colonial clings tenaciously to the heritage of his
forefathers. Most of the old haciendas of the wealthy landowners
have disappeared and small owners have lost their title to the land
through the laws of the “Anglos” in contrast to the vague grants of
Mexico and of Old Spain. But they have not given up their pride
in the achievement of their forebears or their sense of loss in their
changed status.
The memories, ideas, customs, and traditions of sixteenth-century
Spain are stiU an integral part of their pattern of life. The archjr
SPANISH AMERICANS
273
tecture and the furnishings of their homes are of the old world. Their
songs and folk dances are of Spanish origin. To them, the church
and the family are the two ties that bind them together. Only a few
successfully bridged the gap of the centuries and became ranchers
or entered business or the professions. Although public schools were
established after 1890, the education was not adapted to their special
needs, and many still sent their children to the parochial schools or
were content to give them what little education was needed in the
family.
The past quarter of a century has brought changes more important
than those of all the centuries. Better schools and government proj-
ects are changing the lives, especially of the young people. They are
breaking away from the past of their elders, but with the conflict
inevitable in such a period of transition.
The new Spanish immigrants, who were largely farmers and
laborers, can be grouped roughly into three types: seafaring men from
the coastal cities of northwestern Spain; those from the interior of the
Basque provinces; and those from central and southern Spain. The
first group have tended to follow the sea and live in coastal cities.
The second went almost entirely to the west-coast states. Some
settled in Spanish-speaking communities in the Southwest; others
went farther north and established new centers of Spanish immigration
in Oregon, Wyoming, Nevada, Montana, Washington, and Idaho,
the last being sometimes referred to as the Basque state. They are,
for the most part, day laborers, cooks, shepherds, cowhands, clerks,
and gardeners. A few have entered the professions.
Many of the third group, from central and southeastern Spain, went
first to the Hawaiian Islands. The statement is made, which appar-
ently has some basis of fact, that several shiploads believed they were
coming to America until told on shipboard that they were being
sent to work in the sugar plantations in Hawaii. After earning
enough for repassage, 95 per cent came to the United States, the
majority settling within one hundred and fifty miles of San Francisco.
Both colonials and new immigrants tend to settle in or create new
Spanish communities in which their language, customs, and institu-
tions are perpetuated. Dominantly Catholic, much of their cultural
life centers around the church. In Los Angeles alone there are
seventeen Spanish Catholic churches.
Fraternal organizations. Like almost all foreign-language groups,
the Spanish have their own social and fraternal organizations. These
include the Centro Vasco, the Union Espanola de California, the
274 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
Sociedad Espanola de Beneficientici Alutua, the Sociedcid Cervantes,
and La Union Beneficia Espanola. As implied in the names, most
of these societies carry mutual benefits. The last named is the largest
and is typical of the services given to its members. It cares for the
sick, provides death benefits, gives legal advice, and carries on social
and sometimes educational activities.
The press. Like other foreign-language newspapers, those in
Spanish are faced with the twofold problem of serving the older
people whose interests are largely of the homeland and their own
group activities, and the young people who are bilingual and whose
interests reach beyond their own minority group. The Spanish press
is faced with the further problem of serving diverse Spanish-speaking
groups.
The newspaper with the largest circulation and with the most
inclusive coverage is La Prensa, edited by Jose Camprubi. and pub-
lished in New Y ork City. A Los Angeles publication, El Antifas cista,
was, as implied in the name, continuously anti-Fascist.
Educational organizations. Within the last twenty-five years, a
number of organizations have been developed to help the Spanish-
speaking peoples to bridge the gap of transition. One such organ-
ization is the Del Amo Foundation, .established in 1929 to foster mutual
understanding between Spain and the United States by arranging for
an exchange of professors and college students. The Spanish Revolu-
tion and W'orld War II made the work of this organization difficult.
Another organization with a different program is the Accion Cultural
Hispanica in San Francisco. Until recently it was partially sup-
ported by the Spanish government. Its purpose is to give free in-
struction in the teaching of Spanish to the children of Spanish colonials
and, at a small fee, to others. Similar schools have been established in
other communities. In 1926, Dr. Gregorio del Amo established
the Cominguez Seminary in Compton, California, to prepare young
men for the priesthood.
World War II and after. With the coming of World War II
and the emphasis on intercultural education among the Americas (see
Chapter XXXI), the government began to take a more active interest
in the Spanish-speaking groups in the United States. Several state
organizations were formed and in 1941, the School of Inter- American
Affairs was established at the University of New Mexico for those
interested in working on regional problems; in cooperation with local
groups, it has sponsored conferences, exhibits, and adult education
programs.
SPANISH AMERICANS
275
The federal government has also established various activities in the
interest of these groups (see Chapter XXII). To what extent the
activities of the federal government will continue in the postwar
period is problematical, but their influence and the assimilative process
of war will leave a lasting impression.
Contributions to American Life
The gifts of the Spanish Americans, like those of many minority
groups, fall into two types: those of the vast group who by their toil
have given much, and those of individuals who have risen above the
mass and whose names are associated with specific contributions. To
these two, in the instance of the Spanish Americans, a third must be
added, in many ways more important than either of the others: the
cultural heritage of Old Spain that still lives in sections of Florida and
the entire Southwest. Names of innumerable rivers, towns, and
cities and of four states — ^Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and California —
are Spanish. Spanish is more common than English in many com-
munities. Signs in stores are printed in both Spanish and English, and
Spanish script accompanies moving pictures. Bells cast in Old Spain
and hanging in adobe Spanish missions still call the people to worship.
The most obvious contribution, as one travels in the Southwest, is
the distinctive type of architecture. Its dominance varies in the
cities, but one can travel for great distances through scattered villages
and, without changing other than the glaring sign of an occasional
movie house, be back again across the span of time and space in the
villages of Spain. Professor Bolton^ has forcefully described these
contributions as follows:
There are still other marks of Spanish days on the southern border. We
see them in social, religious, economic, and even legal practices. Every-
where in the Southwest there are quaint church customs brought from
Spain or Mexico by the early pioneers. At Christmas time in San An-
tonio one can see Los Pastores enacted. California has her Portola fes-
tival, her rodeos, and her Mission Play. From the Spaniard the American
cowboy inherited his trade, his horse, his outfit, his lingo and his meth-
ods. Spain is stamped on our land surveys. From Sacramento to St.
Augustine nearly everybody holds his acres by a title going back to
Mexico or Madrid. Most of the farms, in a wide swath along the border,
are divisions of famous grants which are stiU known by their original
Spanish names. In the realm of law, principles regarding mines, water
E. Bolton, ‘T>efensii7e Spanish Expansion and the Significance of the Border-
lands,” pp. 37-39 in The Trans-Mississippi West, edited by J. F. Willard, and C. B.
Goodykoontz. Botilder, Colorado: University of Colorado, 1930.
276 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
rights on streams, and the property rights of women— to mention only a
few— have been retained from the Spanish regime. From our Spanish
forerunners in the Southwest we got our first lessons in irrigation, that
art which has become one of our primary southwestern interests. Not
the least important part of our heritage has been the Hispanic appeal to
our imagination. The Spanish occupation has furnished theme and color
for a myriad of writers, great and small. Lomes and Dobie, Lummis and
Willa Gather, Bret Harte and Espinosa have shown that these inter-Amer-
ican bounds have a Spain-tinged folklore as rich as that of the Scottish
border embalmed by Sir Walter Scott.
A less obvious contribution is in the field of migrant agricultural
labor, sheepherding, and ranching. Although it is stated that during
World War I 30 to 40 per cent of the unskilled workers in munition
plants were Spaniards from Spain,^ only a few entered factories or
mines. Nor have they in any large numbers joined those of similar
language, especially the Mexicans, as section hands on the railroads.
Some have become shop keepers and others have entered the profes-
sions. In the first World War, New Mexico had a higher percentage
of volunteers than had any other state, and 60 per cent of these were
of Spanish descent.
The number of Spanish Americans whose names are well known
could be much extended. In 1859 Jose Francisco de Navarro built
the first American sea-going iron steamship, the Matanzas, and in
1 878 he constructed the first elevated railway in New York City. He
established the Atlas Cement Company and was one of the organizers
of the Equitable Life Insurance Company. Augustin V. Zamorano
brought the first printing press to California. Cesar Bor) a, Antonio
Heros, Erasmo Buceto are but three of many Spanish Americans on
university faculties. In the motion picture fields can be named:
Ramon Pereda, Louis Albemi, and Rosita and Antonia Moreno. In
radio and in the arts are other names, but enough have been given to
indicate that the contributions of the present Spanish Americans may
be as significant for the future as their past is to the present.
E. PORTUGUESE AMERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
It is always interesting to learn when the first immigrants from
any country entered the United States, even though their contribution
is not measured by their length of residence. It is known that
Portuguese explorers chartered the California coast in the sixteenth
2 “Spaniards In the United States,” Literary Digest, March 22, 1919, p. 38.
PORTUGUESE AMERICANS
277
century. A few Portuguese came to the colonies during the eight-
eenth century, particularly to coast towns in Massachusetts, from
where, after 1765, ships engaging in the whale fishery sailed tp the
edge of the Gulf Stream, the Western Islands (Azores), and the
Brazilian Banks. The masters of the American whalemen carried
with them from the Western Islands, where they invariably stopped
for supphes, boys to serve as foremast hands or to work in the steerage.
When these Portuguese boys became expert seamen, they were usually
signed up by the captain at an American consulate in any foreign port
where the ship might stop, and as seamen they would enter the United
States.^
In time, a great many of these Western Islanders found employment
as American whalemen, and one author, writing in the 1850’s, declared
that “almost every vessel sailing from New Bedford carried more or
less of them.” A number of these boys were raised as sons in New
England famihes, taking the name of the family, although keeping
their Catholic religion.
A number of Portuguese came to California during the gold rush
of 1849. The Homestead Act of 1865 and the subsequent popula-
tion movement westward brought others, especially around the turn
of the century. They were attracted to the New England whaling
industry, to the Rhode Island fishing fleets, and to the California fish-
ing industry. Up to, and during, the period of World War I, the
nulls and factories of New York, Massachusetts, California, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey drew the Portuguese.
In addition, two thousand came from Hawaii between 1911 and
1914, because of poor working conditions and low wages on island
plantations. All in aU, in 1920, the Portuguese stock in the United
States numbered approximately 106,000, of whom two thirds were
in New England centers (Boston, Cambridge, Providence, Fall River,
Lowell, and New Bedford) . The 1 940 census gives 1 76,407 of whom
62,347 were foreign bom.
Settlements. The largest Portuguese colonies are in New Bedford,
Massachusetts, and Oakland, California. In California the first settlers
were largely of the sailor class. They were followed by farmers who
went to the west coast direcdy from the Azores, Madeira, and the
Cape Verde Islands, as well as from continental Portugal, or indirectly
after having lived in the Hawaiian Islands. Others, in more recent
years, have moved to the Pacific coast from New England.
1 Raul d’Eca, “The Portuguese in the United States,” Social Science, XIV (October
1939). PP- 365-369-
278 “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
As early as the 1850’s, there were two Portuguese settlements in
Illinois, one north of Springfield and the other near Jacksonville.
Each numbered about five hundred settlers and was composed almost
exclusively of Protestant Portuguese exiles from Madeira. They
were induced to come here by the American Protestant Society, and
the American Hemp Company promised them land and employment.
Left stranded on reaching America, they were helped, by contribu-
tions from New York and from residents of Springfield, Illinois, to
proceed westward.
Czdttiral Differentiation and Assimilation
Occupations. By 1899, the Portuguese and the French Canadians
were the dominant labor groups in the cotton mills of New Bedford.
In general, in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, most of them work in
factories, although many are engaged in fishing, in farming, and in
other skilled and nonskilled occupations. Thus, for example, in
Gloucester and Provincetown, Massachusetts, there are large groups
of fishermen, either Portuguese or of Portuguese descent; in Ports-
mouth, Rhode Island, and parts of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a large
proportion of the farmers and. rural laborers also are Portuguese. In
New Bedford and Fall River, Massachuetts, and in a few other com-
munities of the eastern United States, there are many Portuguese in-
dustrial workers.
In California, a number of Portuguese became farmers, usually
working as laborers for their countrymen already established there.
The large majority of them are in central California and within a
hundred miles of San Francisco. In 1920, the Portuguese ranked
third highest in ownership of land and fourth highest in value of
farms in California. In addition, they are said to control 75 per cent
of the cattle of the state. This is true, no doubt, partly because they
came, not to make their “pile” and then return to the old country,
but to settle, and to raise their families in America.
Social divisions. The Portuguese Americans are composed of sev-
eral distinctive groups.^ The mainland Portuguese are distinguished
by some Moorish or Negro admixture. In the Azores, there is a
Flemish admixture and perhaps also a Negroid element. The immi-
grants from the Cape Verde Islands — ^the “Bravas” rank lowest, being
2 Donald R. Taft, Two Portuguese Comnmnities in New England, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1923; Carl Wittke, We Who Built America, pp. 45i->454.
New York: Prentice-Hall, 1939.
PORTUGUESE AMERICANS
279
very dark-skinned — are located mostly in New Bedford and in the
cranberry bogs of Cape Cod. They are to be distinguished from
the Portuguese coming from other sources in the fact that they are
mostly of the African race. Next in the cultural scale are the
Azoreans and then those who come from the mainland.
Acculturation. Nine tenths of the Portuguese immigrants were
unskilled, living in squalid tenements and having a very high mortality
rate. But as farmers they work hard, cultivate intensively, and are
extremely frugal. Those marrying into other groups in California
marry almost entirely with Cathohcs.
The old-world patterns have been retained to a considerable degree.
The man is distinctly the head of the family. In many a home, the
daughter is still merely an apprentice to the mother, learning to be
an obedient, faithful, dihgent wife, versed in old-world culture pat-
terns and steeped in traditions. She is courted and married in accord-
ance with old-world custom. The males usually leave school as early
as possible and take up dairy work or fishing (or get a factory job)
and later marry the daughter of another Portuguese. Religious and
fraternal festivals play a great part.
Organizations and the press. The Portuguese Americans have
numerous societies and social and athletic clubs. The organizations
that pay sick and death benefits are the Azoreana, St. Michael’s
Portuguese Benefit Society, and the St. Pedro Portuguese Society.
In California, there are at least four active Portuguese fraternal organ-
izations, with two or more women’s auxiliaries. In the same state
there are five newspapers printed in the Portuguese language. Al-
though in Hawaii few second- and third-generation Portuguese can
speak or read the language, in California approximately 50 per cent
of Portuguese children are bilingual. Two radio stations (in Oak-
land and Long Beach, California) broadcast programs in Portuguese
each week.
The Portuguese do not easily assimilate, for their cultural patterns
— slanguage, names, gestures, rehgion, and other institutions — differ
from those of the controlling group under whom they work. Then,
too, most of them work in the lowest labor brackets. How the social-
distance principle is practiced against them is evident from a special
census classification that calls them “other Caucasians.” To their
critics they are known as “Portagee.” Having strong control of the
dairying industry throughout Califonxia and of the fishing industry,
especially in the San Diego area, they have tended to segregate them-
selves from other groups. As one writer puts it:
28 o “NEW” IMMIGRATION: SOUTH EUROPEAN STATES
It is shocking to find that these peaceful, laborious, and thrifty people
had the highest illiteracy percentage among all aliens admitted into the
United States (between 1899 and 1910), one of the highest infant mor-
tality rates in the whole country . . . and the lowest percentage of nat-
uralized citizens of the United States . . . , the latter two conditions be-
ing, undoubtedly, consequences in great part of the former. It would
be fitting to conclude these remarks by calling the attention of the social
agencies which aim at correcting human deficiencies such as those just
indicated, to the Portuguese in the United States, who otherwise seem to
be worthy raw material for American citizenship.” ®
Contributions to American Life
The outstanding American of Portuguese descent was John Philip
Sousa, leader of the United States Marine Band and composer of much
famous march music.* George Hard De Sylva, one of the greatest
of America’s music producers, song writers, and motion-picture
makers, comes from Portuguese backgrounds. His father descended
from an old and aristocratic Portuguese family.®
The American Portuguese have, too, brought their gifts and tradi-
tions to give color and variety to American life. A study of the
Portuguese fishermen of Cape Cod, for instance, and of their colorful
customs, demonstrates well the sort of contributions that many even
of the smallest groups are making to America.®
3 Raul d’Eca, op. cit.^ p. 369.
4 Mina Lewiton, John Philip Sousa: The March King. New York: Didier, 1944.
^Noel F. Busch, “Buddy De Sylva,” Life, IX (December 30, 1940), pp. 50-55.
®W. Edward Crane, “Sons of the Azores on Cape Cod,” pp. 275-286, in Mary B.
McLellan and Albert V. De Bonis, Eds., Within Our Gates. New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1940.
CHAPTER IX
Jewish Americans
Harry Schneiderman and Julius B. Mauler
T he story of the jews in America is a study in social economic
adaptation and psychological adjustment. Coming from many
lands and a variety of old-world traditions, the Jews have shown
characteristic adaptiveness to the American economy, culture, and
social pattern. Though largely concentrated in a number of urban
communities, Jews are to be found throughout the land and in every
walk of American life.
There are approximately five million Jews in the United States,
and the great majority of them are of native birth. Exact figures are
not available, since the United States census does not inquire into
religious afiiliations. The estimate given is fairly reliable, however,
being based on the records of Jewish congregations, immigration data,
and estimates from local communities throughout the country.
Jewish immigration into the United States can be divided into four
major periods. The first Jewish immigrants came during the colonial
period and were of Spanish and Portuguese origin. At the outbreak
of the Revolutionary War, there were about 2,000 Jews in the
colonies. The second wave came from Germany after the fall of
Napoleon in 1815, and, in larger numbers, following the collapse of
the uprisings of 1848. This German-Jewish group consisted for the
most part of white-collar workers and professionals. The third and
by far the largest wave of Jewish immigration to the United States
stemmed from eastern Europe and began in 1881 as a mass exodus
from countries where the Jews were in danger of physical persecution
— particularly Czarist Russia, where the plight of the Jews had been
made much more difficult by the May Laws of 1882. Nearly two
million Jews entered the United States between 1881 and 1920, most
of them skilled and unskilled workers and tradesmen, with a small
number of professionals. The fourth wave of Jewish immigration
began after World War I and may be divided in two groupings:
281
282 JEWISH AMERICANS
those who left Europe immediately after World War I because of
postwar economic dislocations, and those who fled as refugees from
persecution by the Nazi regime in Germany and in other countries,
occupied or dominated by Germany during World War 11 .
Distribution and Social-Economic Differ e7ttiation
The Jews of the United States are widely distributed and reside in
every state, with considerable concentration in urban areas. All cities
of 25,000 inhabitants or over have Jewish residents, and Jews con-
stitute nearly ii per cent of the total population in cities of 100,000
or over. New York City has over 2,000,000 Jews, approximately
28 per cent of the total population of the city.
Economic status. During the past one hundred and fifty years,
when the occupational and social traditions of the immigrants harmo-
nized with the general trends of American economy, the Jews estab-
lished themselves in a variety of occupations. Today they are most
heavily represented in trade, in the manufacturing and mechanical
industries, and in the professions, particularly in the fields of medicine
and law.
As for banking and finance, a survey conducted by Fortune Maga-
zine showed that of the 420 listed directors of the nineteen member
firms of the New York Clearing House, in 1933, approximately 7
per cent were Jews. Similarly, only a small percentage of Jews have
places in the investment field, the greatest houses being entirely non-
Jewish. Very few Jews have entered the steel, coal, rubber, auto-
mobile, aviation, transport, and shipping industries. One great busi-
ness that was built up by Jews in this country is the clothing
industry. Jews have also done pioneering work in motion pictures
and radio, yet it should be noted that of the eight principal motion
picture companies, five are largely non- Jewish controlled, and the
vast majority of local radio stations outside of New York are non-
Jewish in ownership.
Religion and community life. The diversity in origin of the Jews
who came to this country is clearly reflected in the many-sidedness
of Jewish community life. No one organization or group can call
itself the representative body of the five million American Jews. Ac-
cording to the 1936 Census of Religious Bodies, there are 3,728 Jewish
congregations in the United States, divided among the three religious
groupings. Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative. Orthodox Judaism
^Jew in America^ Editors of Fortune, Random House, 1936,
JEWISH AMERICANS
283
demands adherence to all the tenets in the code of biblical and rabbinic
law. Most Orthodox congregations are small, but important Ortho-
dox synagogues are to be found in all large cities. Orthodox rabbis
receive training at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary
in New York or the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago.
Reform Judaism came into being in the nineteenth century in
Europe, as the result of attempts to adapt religious practices to the
general environment. The authoritative body of the Reform rabbis
who are trained at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati or the
Jewish Institute of Rehgion in New York is the Central Conference
of American Rabbis. In 1873, the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations was established as the unifying agency of the Reform
congregations, and it now includes more than three hundred con-
gregations.
Conservative Judaism, representing the middle way between
Orthodoxy and Reform, numbers 350 congregations, all of which
are constituents of a central body, the United Synagogue of America.
The rabbis of this group, the majority of them graduates of the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, are organized in the Rabbinical
Assembly of America.
The Synagogue Council of America, organized in 1925, represents
all congregational and rabbinical organizations in America. Its pur-
pose is to speak and act in furtherance of the common interests of its
constituent organizations.
The largest secular movement of American Jews is Zionism, The
Ziorusts look upon the Jews as a nation whose historic traditions are
centered in a spiritual homeland in Palestine. To Zionists, Palestine
is the central issue in Jewish hfe, destined to serve not only as a haven
for persecuted Jews of various countries but also as a national home-
land for all Jews. Zionist organizations had some 207,000 members
in 1943.
The many needs, desires, and interests of the variegated Jewish
commrmity in this country are answered by numerous welfare, cul-
tural, fraternal, and social orgam’zations. About 345,000 people
belonged to thirteen Jewish fraternal orders in the United States in
1940. Outstanding among these is the B’nai B’rith, which, includ-
ing affiliates, has 163,000 members. An organization which in the
past aided in the adjustment of Jewish immigrants was the landsmmn-
schaft, created by groups of Jews from eastern Europe who banded
themselves together on the basis of the places from which they came.
Each society was made up of individuals from the same native town
284 JEWISH AMERICANS
or region. In addition to their social functions, these societies provide
financial aid to needy members in this country and their kin in
Europe. Formed in 1900 to encourage farming by Jews in the
United States, the Jewish Agricultural Society includes among its
activities educational and financial aid to farmers, advice and guidance
on problems of war demands and shortages, and the pubhcation of a
monthly magazine, the Jewish Farmer.
The Jewish community center provides both cultural and recrea-
tional facilities. At the end of 1943 there were 293 Community
Centers with a membership of 390,000, afiiliated with the National
Jewish Welfare Board. The most comprehensive type of center
is the YMHA, which carries on religious, cultural, educational, and
social functions in the service of Jewish youth throughout the coun-
try. The servicing agency for Jewish centers, the National Jewish
Welfare Board, assists local centers by conducting surveys, preparing
programs, training workers, and serving as a clearing house for all
center activities. Organized in 1917 to meet the needs of soldiers
in World War I, it fulfilled the same rehgious, cultural, and social
functions during World War II.
Welfare. The welfare activities in which Jewish communities
engage are as numerous as are the problems presented by a diversified
Jewish population. The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid
Society (HIAS) was founded in 1885 to help Jewish immigrants in
the initial steps of adjusting themselves to American life. The adjust-
ment of the children of immigrants was also facilitated by settlement
houses. Hospitals, maintained under Jewish auspices but admitting
patients on a nonsectarian basis, numbered sixty-one in the year 1940.
Most of these are locally supported. Some, such as the National
Jewish Hospital in Denver, Colorado, serve a national public and are
nationally supported.
Many local organizations support charitable institutions; others,
such as the Jewish Board of Guardians, deal with problems of malad-
justment and delinquency. It should be noted here that recent studies
reveal that the rate of delinquency and criminality among Jews is
relatively low. The wholesome influence of the Jewish home and
the effectiveness of Jewish welfare agencies reduce the incidence of
social pathology.
The organization that coordinates the activities of the Jewish wel-
fare groups is the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds,
established in 1932. The Council, which has 222 member agencies
in 186 cities, deals with the problems involved in organizing Jewish
JEWISH AMERICANS 285
community resources to serve Jewish group needs locally, regionally,
and nationally.
The agency which channelizes American Jewish rehef efforts in
various countries is the American Jewish Joint Distrihution Com-
mittee. The JDC, organized in 1914 to meet the exigencies of
World War I, has vastly expanded its activities to deal with problems
raised by the catastrophic events in Europe in recent years.
Protection of rights. Several organizations in the United States
concern themselves chiefly with the safeguarding of the civil and
political rights of Jews here and abroad. These are the American
Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defama-
tion League of the B’nai B’rith, and the Jewish Labor Committee.
They represent a cross section of American life and speak for Jews
of various political, social, and economic groups. The American
Jewish Committee, oldest of the organizations, was founded in 1906
“to safeguard the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate
the consequences of persecution or disaster affecting them at home
and abroad.” Previous to and during World War II Jewish defense
agencies centered their attention upon combating Nazi propaganda
which aimed to spread disunity among the American people and
which used anti-Semitism as a tool in an effort to break down the
American traditions of religious freedom and equahty of opportu-
nity.
Education. There are about 850,000 Jewish children of school age
in the United States. Practically all of them receive the regular
educational training offered by the public schools of this country,
and it has been estimated that about 75 per cent of them will have
also attended some kind of Jewish school between the ages of seven
and thirteen. Since World War I, the character of Jewish educa-
tion has undergone significant changes. American-bom teachers,
trained in institutions of higher Jewish learning, employ modem
educational methods to instruct their pupils in the Hebrew language,
Jewish literature, and history; and textbooks and curricula have been
adapted to American educational standards.
The instimtions of higher learning where young men study for
the rabbinate and where men and women prepare for the teaching
profession have developed curricula that include, in addition to bibhcal
and talmudic learning, such other branches of culture as philosophy,
sociology, education, rhetoric, history, literature, music, and art. Sev-
eral of these schools offer teacher-training programs as well as general
adult courses. Advanced students may take doctorates in Jewish or
286 JEWISH AMERICANS
Oriental studies at the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate
Learning in Philadelphia.
Fublications. There are some 150 American Jewish periodicals
which serve a threefold function: the dissemination of information,
the fostering of a contemporary Jewish literature, and the binding
together of scattered Jewish communities. There are several news
S5rndicates which supply news of particular Jewish interest and special
feature articles to both the Jewish and the general press. Most promi-
nent of these syndicates is the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Topics
of interest to students of Jewish life are found in such pubhcations as
Menorah Journal, Contemporary Jenvish Record, Jewish Social Serv-
ice Quarterly, Reconstructionist, Jewish Frontier, New Palestine,
Liberal Judaism, Jewish Education, and Jewish Social Studies.
Systematic presentations of information regarding American Jewish
life can be found in the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Universal Jewish
Encyclopedia, the American Jewish Year Book, an almanac of Jewish
information, the publications of the American Jewish Historical
Society, the numerous volumes published by the Jewish Publication
Society, and Popular Studies in Judaism, published by the Tract Com-
mission of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the
Central Conference of American Rabbis.
Cultural Contributions
The many strains that converge to form the pattern of American
cultural life show a variety of contributions made by Jews. In the
fields of natural science and social science the diverse interests and
propensities of American Jews are made particularly evident. Among
philosophers there are Morris R. Cohen, Horace M. Kallen, Irwin
Edman, and Sidney Hook; anthropologists include Franz Boas and
Edward Sapir; educators include Isaac L. Kandel, Paul Klapper, and
FeHx Adler; physicians, A. A. Brill, Simon Flexner, Jacques Loeb,
Morris Fishbein, A. A. Berg, and Joseph Goldberger; physicists, A. A.
Michelson and Albert Einstein; sociologists, Louis Wirth and Samuel
Joseph; psychologists, Joseph Jastrow and Otto Klineberg; statisti-
cians, Phihp M. Hauser and Mordecai Ezekiel.
Prominent in the legal profession were such men as Louis Marshall
and Samuel Untermeyer, while Louis D. Brandeis, Benjamin A. Car-
dozo, and FeUx Frankfurter all became justices of the Supreme Court
of the United States. Other prominent judges include Irving Leh-
man, Joseph M. Proskauer, and Samuel I. Rosemnan.
The Jewish contribution to American journalism has been im-
JEWISH AMERICANS 287
portant, ranging from publishing and editing to feature writing and
reporting. Most prominent of the publishers are Joseph Pulitzer,
founder of the New York World and Evening World, and of the
Pulitzer Prizes; Adolph Ochs, who built up The New York Times
and Arthur Hays Sulzberger, its present publisher; Dorothy Schiff
Thackerey, owner and publisher of the New York Post; Paul Block,
owner of a chain of newspapers; and J. David Stern, publisher of the
Philadelphia Record.^ Among newspaper editorialists and colum-
nists, the following Jewish names are outstanding: Walter Lippmann,
Simeon Strunsky, Samuel Grafton, Weaker Winchell, Max Lemer,
Arthur Krock, and Benjamin de Casseres. Among book publishers,
Jews are represented by such weU-known names as Alfred A. Knopf,
Bennet A. Cerf, Richard L. Simon, M. Lincoln Schuster, and Harry
Scherman.
In the field of radio, Jewish contributions have been many. Two
of the great networks, Columbia and NBC, are headed by Jews.
Many radio personahties in all types of programs and in all phases of
radio work are Jews. Only a few outstanding names can be listed
here: Norman Corwin, script writer and play director; Caesar
Searchinger and Gabriel Heatter, news commentator; Eddie Cantor
and Jack Benny, comedians; Andre Kostelanetz, conductor.
Jewish producers, such as David Belasco, Daniel Frohman, Michael
Todd, and Lee Schubert, have been prominent in the theater. Other
than the production aspects of the show business have also had a great
attraction for Jews. They have distinguished themselves as play-
wrights, actors, directors, and scene designers. A few names among
many are Herman Shumlin and Elia Kazan, directors; Morris Car-
novsky and Alla Nazimova, actors; Aline Bernstein, scene designer;
S. N. Behrman, Lillian Heilman, Moss Hart, and George S. Kaufman,
playwrights; Oscar Hammerstem II, lyricist; and Kurt WeiU, com-
poser.
In the motion pictures, Jews figure not only as producers but also
as directors, actors, writers, and musical and technical supervisors.
The following names are merely examples: Samuel Goldwyn and
David O. Selznick, producers; Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson,
actors; Garson Kanin, director; and Erich Korngold, composer and
conductor.
In music, art, and literature the contributions of Jews are equally
2 The three largest American newspaper chains (Hearst, Patterson-McCormack,
and Scripps-Howard), are entirely non-Jewish in ownership.
288 JEWISH AMERICANS
distinguished and equally varied. Ernst Bloch, Leonard Bernstein,
George Gershwin, and Irving Berlin represent four schools of musical
composition. Among virtuosos and concert figures are Mischa
Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin, Rudolf Serkin, Artur
Schnabel, Alexander Klipnis, Jan Peerce, Bruno Walter, and Serge
Koussevitsky.
American writers of national prominence who concern themselves
primarily with Jewish subjects include Ludwig Lewisohn, Maurice
Samuel, and Marvin Lowenthal. Among well-known American
poets, playwrights, and novelists are a number of Jews including the
following names; Kenneth Fearing, Dorothy Parker, Babette Deutsch,
Louis Untermeyer, Elmer Rice, Clilford Odets, Sidney Kingsley,
Waldo Frank, Edna Ferber, Fanny Hurst, Ben Hecht, and Robert
Nathan.
Jewish artists, sculptors, and architects have pursued their own
individual paths of development and do not in any respect constitute
a special type or school, as the following names show: Moses Soyer,
Raphael Soyer, Leon Kroll, and Saul Raskin, artists; Jo Davidson,
Maurice Sterne, Chaim Gross, and William Zorach, sculptors; and
Albert Kahn, architect.
Two names that have made an indelible mark on American social
history are Samuel Gompers, labor leader, and Lillian D. Wald, social
worker and founder of the Henry Street Settlement. In the field of
philanthropy, outstanding family names include Rosenwald, Straus,
Guggenheim, Schiff, Lewisohn, Warburg, and Littauer.
In sports, examples of Jewish participation are Benny Leonard
and Barney Ross of the boxing world; Hank Greenberg of baseball
fame; Sid Luckman, football star; and Nat Holman, basketball coach.
Jewish Americans are also represented in the field of public serv-
ice. Many were pressed into special duties during World War
II in connection with war and postwar activities. Bernard M.
Baruch, economic adviser to the nation during World War I, was
appointed by President Roosevelt to draw up plans for reconverting
the indusprial war machine to a peace economy. Herbert H. Lehman,
for five terms governor of New York, is director general of the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Isador
Lubin, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was given
special leave to conduct war work overseas.
Other Jews in important posts in public service include Henry
Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury; Nathan Straus, Adminis-
trator of the United States Housing Authority; Lawrence A. Stein-
JEWISH AMERICANS 289
hardt, ambassador to Turkey; and Henry Homer, governor of Illi-
nois, and Julius L. Meier, governor of Oregon.
Jewish patriots and war heroes of an earher historical period were
Asser Levy, Haym Salomon, Judah Touro, and Uriah P. Levy. In
World War I the Jews, who constituted 3.27 per cent of the total
population, made up 5.73 per cent of the total enrollment in the armed
forces. Jewish soldiers were to be found in aU branches of the army
and ranged in rank from private to general. Three received Congres-
sional Medals of Honor, 147 received Distinguished Service Medals
and Crosses, and 982 received other decorations and citations.
World War II again found the Jews playing their part in all
branches of the service. No adequate statistics were available in 1944,
but an indication of the size of the Jewish contribution to the war
effort can be gleaned from the surveys conducted by the Bureau of
War Records of the Jewish Welfare Board. The Bureau made a
study of three medium-sized cities on the eastern seaboard where
Jews constitute 5.6 per cent of the total population and found that
7 per cent of the total number of those recruited for the armed forces
from these communities were Jewish.
Another study, made of Jewish inductees at Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-
vania, showed the wide distribution of Jews in the army. Of 2,895
Jews inducted, 25.2 per cent were in the Air Forces, 9.5 per cent in
the Medical Corps, 9.4 per cent in the Infantry, 7.4 per cent in the
Field Artillery, 7.3 per cent in the Quartermaster Corps, 5.5 per cent
in the Coast Artillery, 5.4 per cent in the Engineers, 4.8 per cent in
the Signal Corps, 3.3 per cent in the Armored Forces, 0.7 per cent
in noncombatant services such as Army Administration, and 1.2 per
cent were in Army Finance. The remaining 20.3 per cent were
distributed among the Cavalry, Chaplain’s Corps, Chemical War-
fare, Military Police, and Paratroopers.
The lists of citations and awards are still incomplete, but Jews have
already earned a fair share. The names mentioned form but a token
representation of many more. Sergeant Meyer Levin received the
Distinguished Flying Cross, the Slver Star, two Oak Leaf Clusters,
and a Purple Heart ia recognition of his heroic exploits. He released
the bombs from the plane piloted by Captain Colin Kelly, which
struck the Japanese battleship, Haruna, off the Philippines; sank
an enemy cargo ship in the Coral Sea; took part in more than sixty
combat missions; and died in the attempt to save his crewmates
when a Flying Fortress crashed during a reconnaissance flight in
^ §tonn pff New Guinea, Lieutenant Alexander Gpode was on9
JEWISH AMERICANS
290
of four chaplains (two of the others were Protestant and one was
Catholic) who gave their lifebelts to enlisted men on a torpedoed
American cargo transport which sank in the North Atlantic. He was
reported missing in action. Sergeant Barney Ross of the Marine
Corps was awarded the Silver Star for killing twenty-two Japanese
soldiers while guarding three wounded comrades during a single night
of fierce fighting on Guadalcanal. He was wounded and contracted
malaria during his months of action in the Guadalcanal jungles.
Acculturation
The blending of the American Jew with his environment has been
a sustained process from 1654 to the present time. Arriving from
many different countries, bearing a time-honored religious tradition,
and settling in all parts of the United States, the Jews have participated
energetically in all phases of American life. They have played parts
in the many and varied spheres of interest to which they were at-
tracted as individuals and have contributed to American industrial
enterprise, to science and art, and to progressive thinking.
Yet, marked as their contribution has been in the arts and sciences
and in the fields of business and public affairs, the Jews as a group
by no means form an exceptional or unique segment of the American
population. In their majority, they are perhaps neither more nor
less distinguished than are other groups of citizens of the United
States. Their calHngs are as diverse as those of their feUow Amer-
icans. There are rich Jews, just as there are rich non-Jews. And
there are just as many poor Jews, relatively, as there are poor non-
Jews. Far from being a homogeneous group, the American Jews
are an aggregate of individuals among whom one can find conserv-
atives as well as progressives. Republicans as well as Democrats, em-
ployers as well as employees, shopkeepers as well as factory workers.
In their opinions, attitudes, and political leanings they differ as much
among themselves as do Americans in general. American Jews fur-
nish as typical a cross-section of urban American life as one could find,
exemplifying by their lives the integration of the cultural, social, and
economic values of Jewish life with the American scene.
CHAPTER X
Asiatic Immigration
A. SYRIAN AMERICANS^
Habib I. Katibah
W ITH thousands of our armed forces in S^ria and neighboring
Arabic-speaking countries, with the question of Saudi Arabia
petroleum aired in our newspapers, with our tacit recognition of the
independence of Syria and Lebanon, Syria and the Syrians should
not be so little known after World War II as they were before.
It is a strange phenomenon, and hard to explain, that the Syrians,
one of the most ubiquitous of peoples, have been among the least
known. As late as 1924, when thousands of Syrians had settled
permanently in the United States, Professor P. K. Hitd could yet say
that “a perusal of practically everything that has been written about
them convinces me that of all the many races that go to make up our
polyglot people, the Syrians are among the most imperfectly under-
stood.” ® Something in their aloof nature, their reticence, and their
almost ascetic indifference to what others say about them, sets them
aside as a pilgrim people, and adds to both their mystery and their
romance.
Syrians of the United States are descendants of the same adven-
turous people whose caravans crossed the Syrian Desert from Byblos
or Damascus to Sumer and Akkad and back, hundreds of years before
the Tel Amama letters spoke apprehensively of the Khebiri (He-
brews?) crossing the Jordan River from the wilderness. Syria has
^The author does not dwell in diis revised chai)ter as much on the history of
Syrian imm^ration to America as he did in the original one. Excellent materials on
this subject are to be found in Louise Se3ntnour Houghten’s articles in Survey, July,
1911, and in other sources cited in the bibliographical section of this book. Instead
he presents largely an overview of Syrian Americans today based on his general
knowledge and on first-hand information gained on an extended tour made in 1940,
in which he visited areas of Syrian concentration in mote than a hundred communi-
ties distributed throughout some thirty states. His findings were published in a series
of articles in Mereat ul-Gharb, an Arabic language newspaper of New York.
2 P. K. Him, Syrians in America, p. 97.
292
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
been called “the school of the Semitic race.” It is equally true that
Syria was one of the first schools of the whole human race. Barring
their Semitic neighbors, the Egyptians, of whom perhaps less than a
hundred are represented in this country, there is no racial minority
among us that can fall back on so ancient a history, a history so
checkered and so eventful both to themselves and to the whole world.
Immi^ation
Syrian immigration to the United States, as we look back upon it
today, falls roughly into three periods or stages. The first, or
-peddling, stage runs down from thq latter part of the nineteenth cen-
tury to a decade or more before World War I. This, in a sense, is
the most romantic and colorful period, the period of discovery, ad-
venture, and colonization. Washington Street in New York was
then the cradle from which practically all Syrian colonies in the
United States moved out, each gravitating to the locality where a
townsman or relative had settled and made good.
The second period of Syrian immigration to the United States
extends roughly from the opening of the twentieth century to the
close of World War I. It was the period of orientation. In this
period Syrians established businesses more or less on modem lines,
began to depend less and less on peddlers’ trade and more on depart-
ment stores, or opened little stores of their own. In New York the
embroidered linen, lace, negligee, and lingerie industry flourished
among the Syrians. In the Middle West and the South, Syrians took
to the grocery business, wholesale and retail fruit-seUing, restaurants,
and allied lines, as well as dry goods and peddlers’ notions.
Coming down to within a decade, and into the present, we reach the
third period of Syrian immigration life, which emerges imperceptibly
from the second. By this time it may be said that Syrians of the
United States had given up their “nomadic” life. This period we
may appropriately call the period of diversification, for in it we see
Syrians entering completely into the American heritage, branching
out into all the economic and social activities of the country, being
represented in practically every industry and profession open to all
Americans, and becoming American citizens.
Because of the classification of immigrants, pointed out in coimec-
tion with many other national minority groups, it is not easy to
estimate the number of Syrians in the United States. The latest
federal census (1940) gives the urban population of the Syrians
(which includes the Palestinians and the Lebanese) as 136,849. Of
SYRIAN AMERICANS
293
these, 52,569 are classed as foreign bom and 84,280 as native bom
of foreign or mixed parentage. Adding to these numbers 3,419 who
are classed as mral farm population, and 11,138 rural nonfarm popu-
lation, gives us a total of 151,406. This is about 50,000 less than the
estimate given by Professor Hitti in his book quoted above, and
100,000 less than the estimate given by Professor W. 1 . Cole, in his
brochure on the Syrians for the Massachusetts Department of Edu-
cation. Some Syrian authorities put the figure for the total number
of Syrians in the United States as high as 500,000. From 1899 to
1915 an average of 5,000 Syrians a year entered this country, the
peak years being 1913 and 1914, with 9,210 and 9,033 entrants
respectively.
Equally vague are the estimates for the various Syrian colonies.
Professor Cole gives the figure for New York, the largest Syrian
colony in the United States, as between 18,000 and 20,000. While
this figure is perhaps a little too low, I believe it is nearer the trath
than the popularity given one of 35,000 to 40,000. The Detroit
colony, next to New York in number, is probably 15,000. Among
other large Syrian colonies, figures for wNch need not be given as
they are mostly conjecmral, we may mention those of Boston,
Lawrence, Fall River, Worcester, Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Toledo,
Jacksonville, Beaumont, Houston, and Los Angeles. It is safe to say
there is no city in America with a population of 100,000 or more
that does not have a nucleus, however small, of Syrian popula-
tion.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
From the point of view of integration and a feeling of belonging,
which are the true measures of Americanization and not assimilation
in the narrow “melting-pot” sense of the word, Syrians in the United
States have passed gradually, and often imperceptibly, through stages
that are represented today in definite types. As these types do not
differ materially from similar types in other minority groups in
America, we need not dwell long upon them. There is the clannish
type, impervious to forces and factors of integration; there is the
cosmopohtan type, too easily, and often superficially, integrated;
and there is the more enlightened nationalistic type. This last type,
intensely conscious of its ancient heritage and of the problems of
adaptation to American life, should be of particular interest to students
of sociology. To the mind of this writer, individuals from this group
or type, as will be shown later in this chapter, have made the most
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
294
distinct contribution to our enlarged concept of American life and
destiny, to America of the future.
Highly individualistic, and endowed with a long tradition of adapta-
tion to the vicissitudes of wars and migration, the Syrians have proved
a wholesome minority in the Uxiited States. This individualism,
however, and this felicity of adaptation, were not incompatible with
a strong sentiment of attachment to the homeland.
Organizations. There are proportionately more societies and clubs
among Syrians in America than, perhaps, among any other minority
group. None of these, however, can measure in effectiveness and
inclusiveness of membership the Greek Ahepa or the Armenian
General Benevolent Union.
The Eastern, Midwestern, and Southern Federations of Syrian and
Lebanese Societies are a belated attempt “to get the Syrians together.”
Anomalously enough, the preponderate membership in these federa-
tions is drawn from the second generation. A promising sign of new
orientation are such projects as the Tal-Shihah Hospital for Zahle,
sponsored by fellow townsmen in this country and launched a few
years before the outbreak of *the second World War; the Hitti
Scholarship Fund; the Dr. Rizk G. Haddad Memorial Foundation;
and the Ramallah Hospital Foundation, the last two having been
started after the outbreak of war. More than a quarter of a century
ago the Syrian Educational Society successfully carried out educa-
tional work and provided scholarships for a score or more of Syrian
students, some of whom have attained positions of responsibility.
This society is at present dormant, and has been so for many years.
Occupations. It is as an individual that the Syrian has shone in
the United States — as anjw^here else — as a good, law-abiding citizen,
a kindly and hospitable neighbor, a considerate friend, a proud and
independent middle-class man, grocer, restaurant keeper, linen-goods
merchant, or women’s-wear manufacturer. Only in a few instances
has success attained what we might call national stature. It is claimed
that the biggest pants manufacturer in the United States and in
the world is Maroun Haj jar of Dallas, Texas, who came to this country
from a little village in southern Lebanon, His three plants in Dallas
employ 2,600 workers and consume some twenty-five million yards
of goods. The efficiency and modernity of his plant, built of brick,
steel, and blue glass, is impressive, and the care that this Syrian em-
ployer takes of his employees is excellent. In Los Angeles one of the
biggest firms for the manufacture of popular-priced women’s house
dresses is Mode O ’Day, of Malouf Brothers. Their factory is housed
SYRIAN AMERICANS
295
in a fourteen-story building in the downtown section of the city.
Before the war, 350 stores carried their name and sold their dresses
exclusively on an ingenious plan. Since then the number of their
stores has been increased. Charles Andrews and his brothers were
among the foremost fruit and vegetable shippers and commission
merchants in the country. In the modern development of the grocery
business the Syrians have also had a share. In some cities, as in Utica,
New York, Charleston, West Virginia, and formerly in Detroit, they
seem to dominate the business. A Syrian in Detroit publishes a trade
magazine for the grocers of Michigan and neighboring states. Mike
(Mahmoud) Hamadi of Detroit owns some of the finest super-markets
in the country.
These are just random examples of what might be termed success
by Syrians of the first generation. The industries and professions
these Syrians have gone into are varied, ranging from department
stores and beauty parlor and barber supphes companies to manufac-
ture of dental plates, wild catting (digging petroleum oils on pros-
pection), and running a wholesale Indian jewelry factory.
Contributions to American Life
As stated above, it is from the more enhghtened nationalistic type
of Syrian that guidance in a more positive and richer readjustment
of our heterogeneous cultures and civilizations is expected. To it
belong such men as Jibran K. Jibran, Ameen Rihani, Abraham
Mitrie Rihbani, Professor Hitti, Dr. F. I. Shatara, and many others
who have sought to interpret the spirit of their ancient culture and
civihzation to their contemporaries and thus to bring them closer to an
understanding of their fellow Americans. They did more than that;
they were also interpreters and messengers of the traditional Ameri-
can way of life to their compatriots abroad. In this respect, their
influence was second only to that of American educators and Ameri-
can institutions of higher learning in Arab lands, notably the American
University of Beirut. Both Jibran and Rihani wrote some of their
best works in Arabic. Others followed in their footsteps, and their
names are as familiar in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt as in the
United States. Mischa Neimy, Elia Madey, Naseeb Arida, the Haddad
brothers, William Catsiflis, N. Mokarzel, N. Diab, Badran, Baddour,
Milkie, and others exercized considerable influence through the Arabic
press of New York, and through works published abroad in Arabic,
on the hterary trends, political thinking, and forward-looking Hberal
movements throughout the Arab world, and in particular Syria and
z<)6
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
Lebanon. The independence nationalist movements in Syria and
Lebanon are considerably indebted to the activities and writings of
Syrian nationahsts in America.
A number of second-generation Syrians have also made their mark
in their various communities and in varied callings. Among these
are: a geologist of Houston, Texas, M. Halbouty; a federal district
attorney for western Michigan, Joseph Deeb; a labor leader, George
Addes of Detroit, secretary-treasurer of the United Automobile
Workers Union of the CIO; a cartoonist on the Louisville Courier
Journal, George Joseph; an authority on the psychology of back-
ward children. Dr. S. Kirk of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Both the first and second generations of Syrians are represented
by a handful of doctors who have attained prominence. Among
them are: the late Dr. F. I. Shatara, Arab nationalist leader and lec-
turer on surgery at the Long Island College Hospital and Post Gradu-
ate Hospital of New York; Dr. George Haik of New Orleans, who
successfully performed several operations of grafting the retina; Dr.
Michael DeBakey (Dabaghi), of the same city, an authority on blood
banking and professor of surgery at Tulane University. Dr. George
Kenysi of Cornell University is a noted bacteriologist; Dr. S. David,
of Houston, Texas, and T. Nicola of New York are noted bone
surgeons, as is also Captain Camille Shaar of the Philadelphia Naval
Hospital. One Syrian, Professor P. K. Hitti, is a world authority on
the ^tory of the Arabs, and another. Professor M. Malti, of Cornell
University, is a distinguished scientist.
One Syrian American who has attained more than national fame
and made a distinct contribution to American progress is Dr. Michael
Shadid, of EUc City, Oklahoma, founder and head of the first co-
operative hospital in the United States. The struggles, hardships,
and triumphs of this intrepid, wiry little man from Judaidat Marj
Uyoun are told in a charming autobiography and also in more than
one of our popular magazines. It is significant that this first-genera-
tion doctor, who had been influenced by a foretaste of higher educa-
tion at the American University of Beirut, and who was destined
to lay one of the cornerstones of socialized medicine in the United
States, was enabled to do so mainly through the sympathetic response
and ready assistance of a community of recent immigrants in west-
ern Oklahoma.
Among the heroes of World War II we find many Americans of
Syrian origin. These include one from Oklahoma, a courageous flier
SYRIAN AMERICANS
297
and a hero of Guadalcanal, after whom a destroyer escort, Naif eh,
was named. The Syrian Americans can pride themselves on one
brigadier general, Fred Safi of Jacksonville, Florida, several colonels,
majors, and commanders, and scores of commissioned and noncom-
missioned officers. In their contributions to the Red Cross and other
war activities the Syrian Americans have done their share. Their
record in the first World War was equally commendable, both on
the home and fighting fronts. Almost 14,000 of them served in the
American armed forces during that war, while their number in
World War II is said to be in excess of 40,000. This is a good ratio
to the total population of the Syrians in America.
As a minority group, Syrians in the United States may not be
able to make a spectacular showing on their own ledger. They have
some excellent qualities and some objectionable ones; they have in-
tegrated themselves slowly but surely, counting among themselves
very few radicals or reactionaries, but walking mostly the middle road
of life. They thrive best when they leave their “colony” and live
in medium-sized towns. They are “lost” both in the big cities and
in rural districts. But for good or bad, and mostly good, their con-
tributions and achievements have been as individuals, often as Ameri-
cans not as Syrians,
The mission of Syrians in the United States, as the mission of other
minority groups, is stiU the dual one of interpreting America abroad,
and interpreting their own culture to Americans and to the world
as a whole. In the case of the Syrians, this opportunity is great. It
extends, in so far as the land of their origin is concerned, far beyond
little Syria and Lebanon, into the umbra of the whole Arab world,
surpassing in total area that of the United States and with almost half
the population. Beyond this umbra lies the penumbra of the Moslem
world. Now that America is entering a new stage of world con-
sciousness, the role of the Syrians in America, as that of the Greeks,
Czechs, Russians, Italians, and others, gams new significance. The
need is more and more for those whose traditions, training, and en-
vironments have fitted them to become messengers of good wiU
between the new world and the old world. There is equally strong
need for Syrians bom in the United States, who are thoroughly
equipped with technical knowledge and the “know how” of man-
agement and industry, to be willing to go to the land of their origin
to lend of their knowledge and experience in the progress and de-
mocratization of that part of the world.
298
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
B. TURKISH AMERICANS
Francis J. Brown
The history of the Ottoman Empire reaches back across the cen-
turies. Conquering armies have waged intermittent warfare across
its fertile valleys and arid plateaus. The Dardanelles, the gateway to
the oil-fields and limitless granary of middle Asia and long the only
accessible gateway to Mittel Europa, has been the coveted prize of
conquerors from Alexander to Hitler. The borders of Turkey have
expanded and contracted with the varying vicissitudes of war.
Yet in spite of this long history, or perhaps, in a sense, because of
it, it is more difficult to segregate Turkish Americans than almost
any other minority group. If the facts as given by immigration and
census figures could be taken at face value, the task would be much
easier. Immigration data show that twenty-one persons arrived from
Turkey in Europe during the first decade that records were kept,
1820 to 1830. Atotal of 278 came between 1831 and 1870, and 5,525
during the next thirty years; but 79,976 arrived from 1901 to 1910,
54,677 from 1911 to 1920; 14,659 during the next decade, and only
810 during the thirteen years from 1931 to 1944, a total of 155,950.
For Turkey in Asia, no figures were kept until 1869, and in that
year only two arrivals are reported. From 1870 to the present the
numbers are: 1871 to 1880, 67; 1881 to 1890, 2,220; 1891 to 1900,
26,799; 1910? 77 » 393 ; 1911 192O5 7953^9; 1921 to 1930,
19,165; 1931 to 1943, 375. The total of arrivals is 205,410, of whom
three fourths came to the United States during the two decades 1901
to 1920. These figures closely parallel the course of imnoigration of
those coming from Turkey in Europe. Combining these two sets of
figures shows that the total immigration from Turkey by June 30,
1943, was 361,360, a number exceeded only by fifteen of the forty
countries separately reported in census tables.
In sharp contrast to these figures are those of the Census Bureau.
In 1940, only 8,372 gave Turkey in Europe as their country of origin,
of whom more than half, or 4,412, were foreign born. (The average
for all foreign white stock is 3 3 per cent.) Turkey in Asia was given
as country of origin by 95,829, of whom also more than half were
foreign bom, or 52,479.
There is significance in the fact that those who gave Turkey in
Europe as country of origin constitute only 6 per cent of immigration,
while those who gave Turkey in Asia as country of origin constitute
46 per cent. The reason is twofold: the changes in the area included
ARMENIAN AMERICANS
299
in Turkey, especially by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923; and the
mixed population of the homeland, including large numbers of Jews,
Greeks, and Armenians.
The number in either the immigration or the census figures who
are of Turkish origin is impossible to determine. Unlike the case of
other national minority groups, there is a tendency to considej; the
official figures many times too large rather than too small. A lead-
ing authority on Turkish Americans states this position in a letter
from which the following is quoted:
Most of the facts and statistics are not obtainable. Few Turks have
come to this country, and those that have immigrated, have been prac-
tically entirely from the lower classes. People have come from Turkey
and met with success here, but they have been either Jews, Greeks or
Armenians by birth. The tobacco magnate, a man by the name of Shinasi,
who died a few years ago, is an example. The reason for this in all prob-
ability is due to the fact that the Turks have never been a migratory race.
The members of the better families have always remained in Turkey. . . .
Our Turkish population, so far as I have been able to find out, consists
only of a few hundred working men in mills in New England and in the
various factories in and around Detroit.
It is probable that the writer of the letter made an understatement,
but of the 30,000 in New York City who, according to the 1940
census figure, gave Turkey as their country of origin, not more than
a few hundred are Turks except in the pohtical sense. Ethnologically
they are Armenians, Jews, and Greeks. There are, however, small
settlements of Turks, often only a few families, in a number of our
larger cities, but even “Turkish” restaurants are sometimes operated
by other than Turks.
As has been stated, the Turks who have emigrated to the United
States are almost without exception from the laboring class. They
sense little internal unity among themselves and have not developed
organizations or pubhcations comparable to those of other national
groups. Their contribution has been largely that of unskilled labor
in industrialized cities.
C. ARMENIAN AMERICANS
Rouben Gavoor
The more we fathom their distant past, the more we begin to
realize the constructive and enlightening role played by the
Armenians in the world history of civilization.
—Professor Lehmann-Haupt
(Armema: Past and Present)
300
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
Cicero wrote, “Tigranes the Great ^ [94-56 b.c] made the Republic
of Rome tremble before his power.’’ Such was the glorious history
of the Armenian people. In their long history, they have shown
qualities and characteristics that are only possessed by great nations
in history — tenacity, courage, valor, self-reliance, capacity to work,
lovefof freedom, a great faculty for adaptation — ^yet they have clung
to and cherished old manners and customs for the sake of preserving
them. Sturdiness of character is the motivating force that has enabled
them to withstand the gigantic forces and continuous conflicts on their
own soil of two opposing and diversifying cultural contenders — the
East and the West. The Armenians, because of these qualities, have
kept their identity, while their early contemporaries have vanished
from the face of the earth. As one meticulous Armenian American
scholar " expressed it: “The Armenians have been for centuries a small,
subject and suppressed, though most fortunately not a submerged
group.”
This same point of view was expressed by Lieutenant Colonel
Harry A. Sachaklian ® while he was with the United States Army Air
Corps in North Africa. His words express the sentiments of an
estimated 10,000 American Armenians, ranking from brigadier general
to private, who served their country in war and of whom a large
number volunteered long before they would otherwise have been
inducted. Lieutenant Colonel Sachaklian states:
In summing up my belongings, I find I possess two things that mark me
as rich as any man in all creation. These two things are my American
nativity and consequent citizenship and my Armenian ancestry and
heritage.
The value of the first of these two possessions has often been eloquently
gaged by masters of the art of expressing values. It makes me belong to
a group of people who by every instinct are free and straight-thinking.
It lists me among those fortunates who believe that a man is a man for
being a man and not through some accident of birth or inheritance. It
numbers me among those men who believe that no man can be free until
all men are free.
The value of the second is directly proportional to the value of the
first. In fact, its value increases as the full realization of the first becomes
clear. For, my second possession, my Armenian heritage, enables me to
fully appreciate my American citizenship. Having learned the tragic yet
noble hLtory of the Armenian people in its indefatigable struggle to at-
1 Tigranes the Great was the ablest of kings. He was called ‘‘the King of Kings.”
Under his reign the Armenian boundary extended far and wide and the country
flourished culturally, economically, and educationally.
2 Dr. Arshag O. Sarkissian, in his short essay, “Why Nationalism?”
s Taken from his congratulatory message, “My Two Priceless Possessions," on the
occasion of HairreTuk Weekly’s tenth anniversary.
ARMENIAN AMERICANS
301
tain a dignified objective, I find to mj astonishment that I possess the
sort of freedom my own ancestors have fought for and died for in their
courageous struggle to obtain.
Prior to World War I, Armenia was divided among Turkey, Persia,
and Russia. At present, a small part of Armenia is organized as the
Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia, a member republic of the Soviet
Union. After centuries of subjugation, Armenia gained her inde-
pendence in 1918 under the leadership of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (A.R.F., Dashnaktzootune, or the Dashnags, as commonly
referred to). The republican government, established at Erivan in
1918, and duly recognized by the Allies in January, 1920, was over-
thrown by a Bolshevik revolution following the Turkish-Armenian
War of 1920, in which Bolshevik Russia helped the Turks. In the
early days of December, 1920, a Bolshevik government was organized
at Erivan and Armenia became part of Soviet Russia as one of the
republics of the Soviet Union, against the wishes and incessant oppo-
sition of the overwhelming majority of the Armenians.
Today, Armenians throughout the world number approximately
3,000,000, having suffered a decline in population from 5,000,000 as
a result of World War I and its aftermath.^ The great majority are
in Soviet Armenia and other parts of Russia. The rest are scattered
over all the world. A sizable portion of them are in the United States.
The United States census of 1940 gives in round figures 52,000,
classified according to language. However, the Armenian authorities
claim that there are about 150,000 Armenians in the United States,
including the children who are bom in this country. Proportionally,
the state of California has the largest number of ALrmenians — centered
around Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Their geographic
distribution throughout the United States is indicated by the eleven
cities having the largest number of Armenians: Fresno, New York
City, Detroit, Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, Union City (New
Jersey), Los Angeles, Watertown and Worcester (Massachusetts),
and Chicago.
Immigration
According to the writer’s investigation, two Armenian immigrants
were brought to this country in the year 1655 by Edward Diggs,®
governor of Virginia, for the purpose of nurturing the silk worm, and
eventually to make silk culture a leading industry. Climatic condi-
^The numbers cited for population are approximations. There are no exact
statistics. .
® Refer to the Begtfmers of Nation, See also, Phillip Alexander Bruce’s Economic
History of Vhrghm in the ijth Century^ pp. 365-368.
302
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
tions, however, were not favorable. Before the Civil War, there were
occasional Armenian visitors into the United States, mostly students
and merchants, who had met missionaries in the Near East. In 1834,
K. Vosganian, a young student, came here to study under the super-
vision of the missionaries. After studying sis years, he returned to
Constantinople, and in 1854 he again migrated to America. While
on board ship, en route to America, he met James Gordon Bennett,
publisher of the Nenv York Herald, who became fascinated by
Vosganian’s knowledge of world affairs and languages. Vosganian
became a successful columnist for the iVew York Herald, and his
popularity reached such heights that he succeeded to the presidency
of the Press Club. Bennett also offered him 30,000 acres of land
in the Ohio Territory to establish an Armenian colony, but, a typically
carefree and sensitive product of the journalism of that period, Vos-
ganian shunned the offer because of the great responsibilities and
risks involved. Three years later (1837), S. Der Minasian came
from Constantinople, entered Princeton, and was the first Armenian
physician in this country.
Other students followed the footsteps of Vosganian and Minasian,
and were equally as prominent in their chosen fields; but for lack of
space it is impossible to include them here. Suffice it to say that
immigration to the United States was stimulated in 1895, and that in
that year the total number of Armenians in this country was 2,767.
By 1910, their number rose to 25,824. These people came to this
country mostly for politico-economic reasons. They were being
persecuted at the hands of Russians and Turks who confiscated the
fruits of their labor by heavy taxation. In despair, they abandoned
their fertile fields to find new opportunities. Most of the early immi-
grants were of the peasant class, with the exception of students and
prominent merchants; but those who migrated after the first World
War were from the cities.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
As in their mother country, -the Armenians in the United States
have been engaged in the professions, arts, crafts, and large and small
business enterprises. Large concerns are generally in the Oriental
rug business and have an international reputation in this particular
field. In addition to these, there are prosperous farmers in California
engaged in grape and wine production.
Religion. No history of Armenia is complete without touching
upon its religion. The Armenian National (or, as often referred to,
ARMENIAN AMERICANS 303
the Gregorian or Apostolic) Church is the central institution of the
Armenian people, and through centuries it has played a prominent
part in their social, spiritual, moral, and educational life. The
Armenian Apostolic Church originated solely with Armenians, by
Armenians, and for Armenians, and it is equally controlled by the
laity and the clergy. Unlike other religious groups, those controlling
it have not tried to increase their number through rehgious propaganda
or by carrying on missionary endeavor. The church is to the
Armenians as the Hving flesh is to bone; they cannot be separated!
Schisms have arisen among the Armenians, but it is safe to say that the
National Church will prevail and will continue to be the dominating
force in their religious activities.
To Armenians, the National Church is more than a religious insti-
tution. The church embraces art, architecture, hterature, philosophy,
and music. One is fascinated by the beauty of its colorful and awe-
inspiring ceremonies and masses. The rehgious songs are full of
pathos, depth, charm, and grace. There are at present in the United
States twenty-five privately owned National churches, supported by
a professed membership of 60,000, where masses are held. The
Armenian Protestant churches come next in importance. The exact
number of their membership is not now known. Armenian Protes-
tants are either Presbyterians or Congregationahsts. Three churches
are owned by the Armenian Cathohcs. The ceremonies of these
Armenian CathoHc churches essentially are those of the Armenian
National Church. All masses, prayers, and songs are in the Armenian
language.
The Armenian National churches maintain fifty schools throughout
the country. These schools are rehgious in purpose and aim, and
educational, hoping to acquaint the younger generation with their
mother tongue, history, Hterature, and art. At the present time they
are making favorable and rapid progress along educational lines, and
are adding what the American schools fail to give — ^the background
of the culture and arts of their mother country. This additional
educational endeavor is welcomed by the younger generation and is
becoming more popular daily.
Organizations. The Armenians in this country lack purely fra-
ternal organizations. There is no exact counterpart of the Pan-
HeUenic Union among them, but the ones they have are supple-
mented by (i) political, (2) scholastic, (3) philanthropic, (4) reh-
gious, and (5) ethnocentric groups.
The first of the poHtical organizations, which is divided into
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
304
four main divisions, is the Armenian Revolutionary Federation,
A.R.F. or Dashnaktzootune (Dashnags), which was founded in
1890 by a group of Russian Armenians. It is democratic socialist.
Since Soviet Russia annexed the present Armenian Republic and
made it one of the Soviets, the Federation has opposed the Soviet
rule and has persistently demanded a complete autonomy for the
Armenian Republic, claiming in the meantime the territories originally
belonging to Armenia. The second group is the Ramgavar (Arme-
nian Democratic Liberal Party), which may be called “the middle of
the roaders,” The third, the Armenian Progressive League of
America (formerly known as the Armenian Section of the Com-
munist party of the United States), is similar to any other communist
group. Last, the Hunchaks (Social Democratic Hunchakian party
of America) is the oldest but the smallest political party among the
Armenians.
In the field of scholastic organizations, the Armenian Students
Association is the largest group, with branches wherever there is a
group of students. Its purpose being purely educational, it has aided
a number of students who have felt the need of financial support. It
has also tried to make the younger generation conscious of their duties
toward their country.
Other similar organizations are the Armenian Scientific Association
and the Armenian Youth Federation (Junior organization of the
A.R.F.) . The first stresses the scientific angle, and the second empha-
sizes Armenian history, literature, art education, and political
regeneration.
The Armenian General Benevolent Union, founded in 1906 at
Cairo, Egypt, has over eighty branches in the United States and
Canada, and half as many in Europe. With the cooperation of its
junior organization (Junior League), this union has done noble work
in alleviating the distress of thousands of Armenian orphans m
Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and present Soviet Armenia. Some of the
wealthiest Armenians are patrons of this union.
There are other benevolent organizations largely local in char-
acter, and several women’s auxiliary organizations, one of these
being the Armenian Relief Corps (sister organization of the Arm enian
Revolutionary Federation), which has a branch in every Atmenian
community.
In the arts, there are several singing and dancing organizations in
principal cities with a large Armenian population. The members
are trained not to become future professional artists, but to further
ARMENIAN AMERICANS
305
Armenian art in this country within their own group and without.
Their purpose is exclusively educational.
The press. No matter where the Armenians may be, they are
quick to start a paper in their own language, and not for the sake of
financial gain, for almost all Armenian journalistic enterprises are
losing propositions. Yet, such papers have sprung up like mushrooms
since the Armenian colonization began in this country.
Arekag (the Stm) was the first Armenian periodical, published
in Jersey City, in 1888, as a monthly; but in 1889 the name was
changed to Soorhantag (Messenger) and the paper became a w^eekly.
After continuing two years, this periodical again changed its name
to Azadootune (Freedom), and shortly afterward ceased publication.
This paper was followed by the Ararat (1891), which lasted two
years, and the Haik (1891), which lasted six years. Then came
Yeprad (1897), a weekly, and the Tigris, published the same year.
After a short while the former was discontinued, and the latter
changed its name to Tsign Haireniatz (Voice of Armenia). An-
other important publication was the Azk (Nation) of Boston,
which began as a weekly in 1906 and was discontinued in 1922 after
being published as a daily for a few years.
In 1899 there came into existence in New York City one of the
foremost Aj:menian language newspapers in this country, the weekly
Hairenik (Fatherland,) sponsored by half a dozen A.R.F. mem-
bers. This newspaper is still in existence as a daily (since 1915), and
is published in Boston. It is the oldest Armenian publication in the
world and has the largest circulation in the United States. It also pub-
lishes a monthly, the most outstanding periodical in the history of
Armenian literature. It is rich in literary and historical material.
Another publication that has exerted much literary and religious in-
fluence is the Gotchnag, founded in 1900 by the late Herbert Alien,
with the collaboration of Armenian Protestants.
There were in 1944 several major Armenian publications, not
including church or other publications such as Hoosharar, the
monthly organ of the Armenian General Benevolent Union. The
names of these publications foUow: Asbarez, (The Arena), a weekly
founded in 1908, organ of the A.R.F.; Mushag, an independent
weekly; and Nor Or (New Day), a weekly, organ of Ramgavar.
These are published in Fresno, California. Hdrenik, Hairenik
Monthly, and Baikar (Strife), a daily, organ of Ramgavar (1922), are
published in Boston, Massachusetts. Eritassard Hayastm (Young
Armenia), a weekly ( 1 903 ) , is an organ of Hunchag party; Gotchnag
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
306
(Bell, 1900), also a weekly, is the organ of Protestant Armenians.
Lraper (Messenger), a triweekly, organ of the Armenian Progressive
League of America (Communist) superseded Fanvor (Worker), a
daily, for a short period; Nor Kir (New Letter), quarterly, is a
literary magazine. Hayasdaniatz Yegeghitzi (Church of Armenia.)
IS a monthly religious periodical, organ of the Armenian Prelacy.
The last four are published in New York City.
Besides the Armenian publications, several periodicals have been
published in the English language for the English-spealdng world and
the young Armenian generation of the United States. The fore-
runner of these was Armenia (later named New Armenia), founded
about 1906-1907, and published intermittently until 1920. In 1944
two Armenian weeklies were being published for the Armenian
younger generation of the United States. These are: the Hairenik
Weekly (1934), of Boston, the organ of the Armenian Youth Federa-
tion, affiliated with the A.R.F., which recently celebrated its tenth
anniversary with a special issue of 160 pages; and The Armenian
Mirror Spectator, a weekly published in New York (1936). Youth,
the organ of the Armenian Communist youth, ceased publication
several years ago.
Social life. Social life is gay for the elders, who gather on occa-
sions, at picnic grounds and ballrooms, for affairs sponsored by polit-
ical parties or religious, lay, or benevolent groups, for the sake of
meeting one another and having a good time. Although athletically
inclined, Armenians have no gymnastic organizations of great size.
The Armenians hold two Olympic games each year: one sponsored
by the Armenian Youth Federation, and the other by the Armenian
General Athletic Union. At these meetings, the participants achieve
fine records. During the year, these two organizations hold competi-
tion meetings between their own branches in various sports.
Some national celebrations of the Armenians are observed in Amer-
ica. One of the most important of these is the commemoration of
St. Sahag and St. Mesrob, inventors of the Armenian alphabet
(41 3 A.D.) and translators of the Bible. To Armenians, the St. Sahag
and St. Mesrob Day is a solemn occasion when every true Armenian
becomes rightfully proud of his race, proud of its history, literature,
and culture, because in “this age the foundations of a national con-
sciousness, culture, and religious idealism were laid. The very fact
that Armenians thus built up a high type of Christian civilization in
the heart of the Near East exposed them to the hostility of alien
peoples smrrounding them with a different type of civilization. What
really has always created a crisis in the national life of Armenians
ARMENIAN AMERICANS 3°?
and has menaced their very existence has also, paradoxically, proved
to be the secret of their endurance and survival through every such
crisis.” ®
Other important national celebrations are Vartanantz Day and Inde-
pendence Day (May 28, Armenian Independence or November 29,
foundation of the Soviet Armeman Republic).
In an interview with the author, Horst von der Goltz,’^ who has
perhaps as wide a contact with immigrant groups as has any individual,
stated that the Armenians display a greater degree of adaptability than
other late comers, and yet at the same time retain their old-country
ideals. Paradoxical though this statement may seem, it is nevertheless
a fact. They become conscientious and devoted citizens, learn the
Americanization requirements with great rapidity, and become
assimilated amazingly and exceedingly well. Why? First, because
they know and appreciate the value of education; and second, being
the sons of a persecuted people, they have learned the art of assimila-
tion and are receptive to international influences.
With the American-bom Armenian, the ALmericanization influence
is still greater. These young people, because of their immaturity, at
first resent things Armenian; but gradually a marked change steals over
them, and they become interested in their ancestry, begin to show
appreciation of Armenian art, Armenian literature, and Armenian
history, and are almost boastingly proud of being of Armenian
descent. Recently, this writer made the following observations: ®
Furthermore, the education of these folk in their ancestral background
has had its positive social and psychological aspects. They, as a group,
no longer feel ashamed of their background. On the contrary, they now
feel deeply proud of the commendable qualities displayed by their an-
cestors fighting doggedly to preserve their culture, their institutions, their
identity, and their idealism. In the perpetual historical struggle of their
mother country, they have drawn a certain parallelism and similarity with
the history of their own country— the United States, which is now en-
gaged in a gigantic struggle to preserve the very dignity of the human
individual.
The American-bom Armenians, like their parents, are devoted citi-
zens and have taken fuU advantage of our educational system. A
great many of them attend colleges and become worthy workers in
® Statements are from a small pamphlet published by the Armenian, Evangelical
Church of New York City.
Editor of Folk Nevis, published by Folk Festival Council, aaz Fourth Avenue,
New York City.
®Rouben Gavoor, “Weekly’s Tenth Anniversary,” in Hairenik Weekly's Tenth
Anniversary, Number, 1934-1944, p. (58.
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
308
their chosen fields. The younger generation of American-born
Armenians have much to offer to America. Signs of this are already
evident in many fields, where they have exhibited exceptional talent,
be it in music, painting, engineering, science, the social sciences, archi-
tecture, farming, business, the educational, medical, or military fields.
Comparatively speaking, the number of Armenians leaving this
country is negligible. They generally came with the purpose of
staying. With no independent country to turn to, America became
their country, and it is for this reason that they make wise use of their
opportunity to become devoted, law-abiding, and honest citizens.
Contrihutions to American Life
Estimation and evaluation are difficult to make concerning leaders
of any one group of people, as it is a peculiarly individual concept.
With this in mind, we mention a few outstanding Armenians in
America who have played or are playing a leading part in making
contributions toward enriching the land of their adoption.
In the field of arts, many names are well known: Hovsep Pushman
of New York is one of the foremost contemporary painters. The
paintings of Sarkis Khachadoorian, Manuel Tolegian, and Edmund
Yaghjian have earned wide publicity and high praise. A. Fetvajian
of Boston is a painter and student of Armenian architecture.
H. Ajemian (Ariel) of New York, mural painter, won fame with
his murals of the Roxbury (Massachusetts) Cathedral (1942).
Mugurdish Garo was a famous photographer of Boston, unquestion-
ably one of the finest in America. Haig Patigian and Rouben Nakian
have gained national fame as sculptors. Paolo Ananian (now de-
ceased) was a noted and popular Metropolitan opera singer for over
two decades. Armand Tokatyan is an internationally famous opera
singer. The appealing voices of Rose Zulalian, Mario Arakian, Zaruhi
Elmassian, and Alice Avakian have vibrated on many concert plat-
forms. Alan Hovannes is a young composer-pianist whose composi-
tions have been played by leading symphonies. Maro Ajemian,
composer-pianist and instructor at Julliard School of Music, shows
promising talent regarding which the music critics have used superla-
tives. Tamara Toumanova, dancer, is one of the world’s leading
ballerinas. Nikita Balieff, who died some years ago, was the promi-
nent actor of Chauve-Souris. Akim Tamiroff is a popular character
movie actor. Rouben Mamoulian is a distinguished stage and movie
director. Among the novelists and short-story writers, the name of
William Saroyan is too well known for comment. Avedas Derounian
ARMENIAN AMERICANS
309
(John Roy Carlson) is the author of numerous magazine articles and
of the best-seller, Under Cover. Lesser-known but promising novel-
ists are Richard Hagopian, author of The Dove Brmgs Peace, and
Emanuel Varandyan, author of The Well of Ararat. Arlene Francis
(Kazanjian) is a popular radio and stage actress.
In the field of business, such names as the following come to the
fore-front: Karagheusian, Gulbankian, Nahigian, Kelekian, Avakian,
Arakelian, A. Setrakian, Mardigian, and Zildjian. The first five are
prominent rug merchants. Arakelian, Mosesian, and A. Setrakian are
nationally known grape producers and shippers, as well as wine manu-
facturers. Setrakian is one of the well-known public figures in the
raisin industry, who, during World War II, was appointed as a coun-
sellor of the UNNRA. Mardigian is well known as the owner of
a chain of Oriental restaurants in California, the most famous being
Omar Khayyam of San Francisco. Zildjian is a manufacturer of
world-famous cymbals, made by a secret process handed down from
father to son for generations in Constantinople. This secret formula
is jealously guarded from competitors. The family is now engaged
in the same business in Salem, Massachusetts.
The Armenians in this country have gained even greater prestige
in the professions and in education than in business. Only a few
examples can be given: Dr. Varastad Kazandjian, professor of aural
surgery at Harvard, is one of the greatest authorities in his field. Dr.
Minas Gregory was the eminent psychiatrist who, for over twenty
years, was the head of the psychopathic department of Bellevue
Hospital. Mooshegh Vaygoony was the famous California scientist
who invented synthetic tartaric acid. Dr. Seropian, one of the first
Armenian doctors and scientists, was the inventor of the green color-
ing matter of the American dollar. Dr. S. K. Kassabian was the
famous Philadelphia scientist, one of the greatest investigators of the
Roentgen ray in the world. Professor 'VTadimir Karapetoff is pro-
fessor of electrical engineering at Cornell and is the author of Experi-
mental Electrical En^neering. He is classed among the American
men of science. The late Professor M. Y. Ananigian was well known
as professor of theology at Hartford Seminary and the author of
several articles in the Hasting’s Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.
The late Dr. M. Mangassarian, of Pasadena, California, was a great
theologian philosopher, humanist, and orator, and the founder of the
Free Church of Chicago. Profe^r Sirarpie Der Nersesian, chairman
of the art department at Wellesley College, some years ago received
France’s highest scholastic degree from the Sorbonne. She is the
310
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
author of Illustration du Rosnan de Barlaarn and Armenian lllustries.
For the past few years she has been lecturing at the Morgan Library,
New York, as the first person appointed to the hbrary as a lecturer.
The late Professor Aram Torossian, author of A Guide to Aesthetics,
was professor of architecture and art at the University of California
(Berkeley). Professor Yervant Krikorian holds the chairmanship
of the philosophy department at the City College of New York.
Professor H. M. Dadurian is a professor of the Sheffield Scientific
School at Yale. He has written several thought-provoking articles
for the American Journal of Science.
Innumerable other outstanding Armenian immigrants have been
equally as famous in the foregoing and other fields.® Some of the
offspring of these immigrants have found their place in every known
field. Some are in the making, and others are budding; but space does
not permit their inclusion. Suffice to say that the future holds even
greater promise for the Armenians to contribute more of their rich
and ancient culture to the cultural pluralism of America, which is
gradually emerging from the mixture of various immigrant cultures
into a distinct American type. Armenians have played no small part
in this contribution, and will continue to do so on a larger scale in
the future, as long as freedom and opportunity is theirs to enjoy.
D. HINDU AMERICANS
Elmer L. Hedin
It is inevitable that any discussion of immigration from India to the
United States must bristle with apparent contradictions, and it is
impossible to explain such discrepancies in a satisfactory manner to
anyone not already somewhat acquainted with the endlessly diverse
culture of India, its numerous racial and linguistic origins, its extremes
of riches and poverty, its easy tolerance and its crystallized caste
structure, its idealism, and its indifference to discomfort and suffering.
The migration of culture traits from India, so far as the United
States is concerned, has taken place largely through intermediaries;
only in the last generation has there been much direct contact between
natives of the two countries. Few Americans have lived in India
long enough to understand what they observed. Numerically the
9 See Hdrmik Weekly^ Tenth Anniversary Number, for biographical sketches of
leading Armenian Americans now in the armed forces, including General Haig
Shekerjian, Colonel Sarkis M, Zartarian, Major Axra Arakian, Lieutenant Com-
mander Jack Mahigian, and many more.
HINDU AMERICANS
3 “
Hindus in this country constitute a small group, economically their
importance is negligible, culturally most of them have been isolated
from our social hfe. Nevertheless, I hope that the reader will see the
picture of their life in America, as presented here, against the larger
background of cultural interchange between India and the West.
I have used the term “Hindu” in the title heading and shall con-
tinue to use it in referring genericaUy to natives of India, but it is a
term that requires qualification. A Hindu, strictly speaking, is one
who professes Hinduism. Actually, most of the so-called Hindus
in the United States belong to the Sikh religion and a few are Muham-
madans from northern India and from Afghanistan. The word
“Hindu” will therefore be understood in its popular sense unless the
religious meaning is specifically indicated.
Immigration
It is recorded that one alien from India came to the United States
in 1820, but we do not know whether he was a Hindu or a European
bom in India, as arriving aliens were not distinguished by race until
1899. In any event, arrivals from India numbered less than 100 a
year until 1904, when 258 Hindus were admitted. The number
increased to 1,072 in 1907 and to 1,782 in 1910, after which immi-
gration restrictions reduced admissions to about 2,600 in twenty
years. Since 1930, very few Hindus have been admitted, and those
who returned to India have outnumbered the new arrivals. Allowing
for those who entered the country iUegally and for errors in the census
returns, it is probable that not more than 6,000 Hindus were ever in
the United States at one time. There were 3,130 in 1930, according
to the census of that year, and in aU probability there were not more
than that number in 1944.
The motives back of this immigration, the processes through which
it occurred, and the forces that halted it are not difficult to identify.
According to Immigration Office records, most of the Hindus who
entered the country between 1904 and 1910 were agricultural laborers
from the Punjab in northern India. They came from fairly fertile
but overpopulated areas. Families increased, but the productivity of
the soil did not. A few heard of opportunities in Aunerica and, after
a brief time here, wrote letters to relatives in India enclosing money
orders. Steamship companies, making profit from crowded and
fetid steerage decks, advertised throughout the Punjab. Individuals
traveled through the villages recruiting contract labor for private
employers in Canada. In 1908, the Canadian government effectively
312
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
stopped further immigration, and the number dropped from 3,623
in 1908 to 6 in 1909. This action shifted the immigration to the
United States.
Few women were included in the immigration from India. Most
of the men came with the thought only of saving money and then
returning home. Some carried out their plan, but most of them,
especially the Sikhs and the true Hindus, remained. They moved
through the usual occupational cycle of Asiatics on the west coast,
working at first as laborers in industry and agriculture, later as fore-
men and leasers in the farming districts and as small businessmen in the
cities. A handful of upper-class Hindus were granted American
citizenship, but this was later revoked.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Occupations. During the first period after the arrival of the
Hindus, they were often paid lower wages than laborers of other
ethnic groups. After their drift into agricultural occupations, how-
ever, they bargained successfully in competition with laborers of such
groups. In California they at first moved about in gangs, each under
a headman and interpreter, hiring out as a body, drifting from the
rice lands of the Sacramento Valley to the cotton district in the
Imperial Valley as the crops ripened. Many employers liked them;
they could be depended on to stay until a crop was harvested, and
they rarely complained about the primitive living quarters provided
for transient labor. Moreover, they loved the land and soon adapted
themselves to new agricultural methods.
But the Hindus, Hke the Japanese, are a thrifty and frugal people
with plenty of initiative. Their ambition has been to operate their
own farms and businesses, and they have to a large extent achieved it.
In British Columbia they own and operate several lumber mills, and
a number of them have small fruit and vegetable farms in the vicinity
of Vancouver. In the Imperial, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Valleys
of California they operate several hundred thousand acres of land.
Some who began as day laborers or section hands have established
small business establishments and opened stores and restaurants.
Culture contacts. The Hindu was a late comer to the labor markets
of the west coast. On his arrival there, he found a public opinion
already bitterly antagonistic to Asiatic labor and organized to oppose
its entrance. AH the arguments and prejudices which had been used
to bring about the exclusion of Chinese and Japanese were turned
against the Hindus. They were several times the objects of mob
HINDU AMERICANS
violence: at Bellingham, Washington, in September, 1907; at Live
Oak, Cahfomia, in 1908; and at St. John, Oregon, in 1910. At that
time a stricter interpretation of the American immigration laws prac-
tically stopped Hindu immigration, and the tension lessened. Not
that Hindus were better liked, but the few who slipped into the
country across the Mexican border were not regarded as constituting
a menace to American labor or American culture.
But the pattern of Hindu life in America had been set, a pattern
of unyielding prejudice against these “ragheads” on the one hand,
and of bewilderment gradually changing into resentful self-sufficiency
on the other. And the Hindu culture traits that most clearly meas-
ured the social distance between the two peoples were the very ones
that these men from India prized most highly. It has already been
indicated that most of them were Sikhs, and the Sikh religion pre-
scribes that its men shall wear fuU beards and long hair. These adorn-
ments, together with the turbans worn by all the Indian immigrants,
set their wearers apart. Moreover, there were food tabus: Hindus
and Sikhs might not eat beef or eat meat prepared by persons of other
races; Muhammadans might not eat pork; all had scruples about eat-
ing with persons outside their own groups. These men were too
different to be accepted casually by Americans and too fixed in their
own culture to dispense with the customs that set them apart.
Consequently, they have maintained themselves in this country
isolated from its social life to a degree probably equaled by no other
people. It is true that expediency has dictated the abandonment of
certain customs that prevail in India, but the changes have been
superficial. The abnormal ratio of men to women also has been an
important factor in their isolation, since it encouraged the continuance
of groups living together in the same house on a democratic communal
basis and of partnerships in renting land. Their chief meats are lamb
and poultry, heavily seasoned with curry and other spices. Fruits
and vegetables occupy a prominent place in their diet. They use
little furniture in their houses and few cooking utensils. Chapatis,
the unleavened bread of India made with wheat flour and plenty of
butter, are baked on the top of the stove. While farmers adopt
American work clothes, in other personal habits they tend to retain
their old-world characteristics, -u
The total number of Hindu families in this countn' not known,
but they are relatively few and confined iaigci). to the upper classes.
A few professional men have been permitted to bring their vrives
from In^ Several educated Hindus have married American women
314
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
and a number of farm workers have married Mexican women. Even
though most of these marriages seem to be successful, they are frowned
upon to such an extent that they merely serve to intensify the
prejudice.
There were in 1930, according to the fifteenth census, 412 Amer-
ican-bom Hindus in the United States, 333 of whom were under
ten years of age and 220 of whom were residents of California. It
must be remembered that these children include those bom of mixed
marriages and those belonging to Hindu families of cosmopolitan
culture. They are to be regarded as more American than Hindu
in their attitudes and in the social customs to which they are being
conditioned. They accept the cultural pattern of the mother.
Those of school age are attending school.
It may be said here that the Hindus in this country have shown an
interest in education equaled by scarcely any other cultural group.
Their children are given the best schooling possible, and several adults
of the laboring class have used their savings to complete college
courses in engineering, forestry, and medicine, later returning to
India to practice their professions. In addition, American Hindus
have contributed generously to the support of schools both here and
in India, as well as to other philanthropies.
Organizations. The Hindus have no national association to further
the economic welfare of their people here, but they support a number
of rehgious, social, and pohtical organizations, most of which are of
merely local importance. One of the strongest is the Sikh religious
group, the Khalsa Diwan Society, with American headquarters at
Stockton, California. It owns a temple in that city, collects dues
from members, and encourages religion and education. The Moslem
Association of America was founded at Sacramento in 1919 for
similar purposes. A militant nationalist organization, the Pacific
Coast Hindustani Association (better known as the Gadar Party) , has
its headquarters in San Francisco and is concerned with freeing India
from British rule. The activities of this party are supposed to have
been connected with certain murders of Hindus which have occurred
in Cahfomia during the past ten years, but quite possibly the men
Idlled were done away with because they had informed against those
of their countrymen who had entered the United States via the
Mexican border. Apparently, too, financial gain was a motive in
these murders.
The press. A number of periodicals have been published by
Hindus in this country, but most of them have been short-lived. At
CHINESE AMERICANS
315
die present time, the Sikh organization prints a certain amount of
rehgious literature, and there are two Indian nationalist publications
which appear fairly regularly, one in Hindi published in San Francisco,
one in English published in New York.
Contributions to American Life
Little has been said in this chapter concerning Hindu immigrants of
the business and professional classes. That is because they are, for
the most part, international in culture and lost among the general
American population rather than congregated in groups. Some
hundreds of Hindus reside in the cities of the North and East, some
of whom originally entered the country as sailors and established
small businesses. Others follow various professions and skilled trades.
A few are engaged in the teaching of Indian religion and philosophy.
Several are professors in American colleges.
To many of these men the United States owes a debt of gratitude
for their sincere and tireless efforts in working for cultural inter-
changes between India and America. Among others might be men-
tioned Dhan Gopal Mukerji (deceased) and Kedar Nath Das Gupta.
Probably the most famous Hindu now residing in the United States
is Jiddu Krishnamurti, poet and philosopher. These and many others
have helped to make us aware of the depth and richness of India’s
culture, a subject which we might well study to the end of the better
focusing and guiding of our raw and undisciplined energies. As an
indication that the reverse process also has merit, it might be men-
tioned that a number of Hindus educated in American universities are
now employed in the official service of the progressive Indian states
of Baroda and Gwahor. If the immigration of Hindu workers into
the United States has been a social failure, the outcome of our rela-
tions with Hindus of the educated class has been one of outstanding
success.
E. CfflNESE AAIERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
The Dragon Empire of China became a Dragon Republic thirty-
two years ago on October 8; but in 1944 the anniversary found the
dragon fighting too hard for great celebration. The Chinese Re-
public’s birthday was observed, however, in the United States, where
citizens of Chinese origin gave a day of commemoration to the an-
cestral homeland which many of them have never seen.
3i6
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
Immigrcttion
The United States immigration statistics show that one Chinese
was admitted in 1820 and that up to 1853 only eighty-eight had been
admitted. These first arrivals were received without prejudice and
even with enthusiasm. They were mild, unobtrusive, and industrious,
and in those days race antipathy was subordinated to industrial neces-
sity. They were highly valued as general laborers, carpenters, and
cooks; their restaurants were well kept and extensively patronized.
They took to pieces the old vessels that lay abandoned in the channel
of the Golden Gate. They cleared and drained the rich lands of
California, work that the white miners of the gold rush were too busy
to undertake. Women were lacking in the Pacific coast settlements,
and the Chinese served as cooks and laundrymen. The white miners
sold their worked-out claims to the Chinese and looked for larger
and more promising sites.
About 20,000 Chinese arrived in 1852 and 13,000 in 1854. In the
1 86o’s, they were once more in demand. At the end of the Civil War,
the work of completing the first transcontinental railroad was rapidly
pushed forward. On the Union Pacific Railroad, building westward
from Omaha, were the Irish and other workers; on the Central Pacific
Railroad, building eastward through the mountains, nine out of every
ten of the workers were Chinese.
From this time on, the Chinese filtered eastward to our great cities
where they took up different occupations. Their numbers gradually
increased, 40,000 being admitted in 1882, most of whom settled along
the west coast. As a result of this increase in the number of Chinese
immigrants, 123,201 from 1871 to 1880, Congress, in 1882, suspended
Chinese immigration for ten years. This suspension was later re-
newed and the number admitted from 1890 to 1943 was 92,764,
or only a little more than twice the number of arrivals in the United
States during the single year, 1882. The number in America at
any one time has decreased from 107,000 in 1890 to about 77,000
in 1943.
Anti-Oriental movement. The first difficulties arose in the mines
where American miners objected to foreign competition — ^European,
Mexican, Chilean, and especially Chinese, as, of all the groups con-
cerned, the Chinese were most clannish, most obviously alien. The
agitation of the Know-Nothing Party of the East was paralleled in the
West by a growing antagonism, the result of the passing of the gen-
erous enthusiasms of the early days of gold and the evidences of the
CHINESE AMERICANS
317
growing competition and realities of hard work. The Chinese had
to suffer the brunt of serious attacks. The former “docile” Chinese
were accused of being “contract coolies, avaricious, ignorant of moral
obligations, incapable of being assimilated and dangerous to the wel-
fare of the state.” ^ Mob violence took place in some mining districts,
and in 1852 the California legislature imposed a special tax on all
aliens engaged in mining. The tax became increasingly higher in
subsequent years, but was declared unconstitutional in 1870. Thus
prejudice served as a “good” reason for revenues. Later, however,
the objections took the form of exclusion, especially when condi-
tioned by the rising tide of national and racial consciousness. Cul-
tural and biological arguments superseded to the economic reasons,
and the agitation finally reached national proportions. In 1868 the
Burlingame Treaty still recognized the right of immigration between
the United States and China, but Chinese were barred from becoming
citizens through naturalization. Restriction on immigration began
in 1880, when a treaty with China permitted a reasonable limitation
of Chinese laborers. But the Chinese continued their exodus, pro-
moted by steamship companies, and in 1882 immigration of Chinese
laborers was prohibited, and subsequent treaties and legislative acts
estabhshed it as a national policy. In 1917 China was included in
the barred zone. Chinese were not permitted to be naturalized and
ordinary immigrants were not allowed to enter according to the Act
of 1924. This period is marked by a tendency of the Chinese toward
wider occupational and territorial distribution, accompanied by the
intensification of prejudice and active opposition on the part of the
Americans.
T he repeal of the Chinese Exclusion A ct. Under the quota system,
applied to immigration since 1924, only 105 Chinese could enter
annually. But to China it was the principle that mattered — ^to China
as one of the United Nations fighting on the side of the United States
in World War 11 . In October, 1943, President Roosevelt asked
Congress to act promptly on a pending bill to repeal Chinese exclusion
laws as a means of assuring America’s Chinese allies that we regard
them as full partners in the war agaiost Axis aggression. Repeal of
the exclusion laws would allow an immigration of about 100 Chinese
a year, Mr. Roosevelt said. This, he pointed out, would certainly
not cause unemployment in this country or provide any measurable
1 M. R. Coolidge, Chmese Inmugration^ p. 31. New York, Heruy Holt and Com-
paay, 1909.
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
318
competition in Americans’ search for jobs. “I regard this legislation,
he said, “as important in the cause of winning the war and of estab-
hshing a secure peace”; he commented that it would also silence the
distorted Japanese propaganda.”
The proposal had greater significance for the west coast than for
any other section of the country. This area, and California in partic-
ular, had led the fight for the immigration ban more than sixty years
ago. In the intervening period, coast residents had not been per-
mitted to overlook the possible consequences, especially economic,
that might result from an “opening of the door.”
As recently as early 1943, few observers would have supposed that
California, through boards of supervisors or city councils of its leading
municipalities, through chambers of commerce and many other organ-
izations, would express itself in favor of lifting the barrier so as to
permit even 105 Chinese to enter the country annually on the quota
basis. This was the case, however. There unquestionably was a
substantial change of attitude, and the House of Representatives’ ap-
proval of President Roosevelt’s proposal was greeted with satisfaction
by newspapers such 2s The Sun Francisco Chronicle, which had cam-
paigned editorially since the spring of 1943 for repeal, and by dozens
of organizations, spearheaded by the Citizen’s Victory Committee,
which had shared in the campaign.^ Generally speaking, the support-
ing west-coast organizations took the stand that repeal of the Exclusion
Act was important in combating Japanese propaganda, which accused
America of discriminating against an ally, and in giving concrete
assurance of good will toward China, thus bolstering her morale.
The Chinese Americans regarded the step as a great victory for justice.®
There was a pretty general behef that the visit of Mme. Chiang Kai-
shek to the west coast in the spring of 1943 played no inconsiderable
part in swinging sentiment in California in the direction of repeal,
which came into effect as federal law at the turn of 1944.
The Chinese still have to meet all the requirements of our immi-
gration laws, 105 being eligible to be admitted each year. But the
new law differs from regulations governing the admission of other
2 “House Vote on Chinese Pleases Many on Coast,*^ The New York Times, October
31, 1943.
3 It cannot be said that the west coast was unanimously in favor of this step. Labor
was split on the subject: the Congress of Industrial Organizations supported repe^
but American Federation of Labor groups, with far larger membership, opposed it.
Officials of the Native Sons of the Golden West also opposed it. On the other
hand, the American Legion’s Department of California called for repeal of the Ex-
clusion Act and recommended that the Oregon and Washington departments take
similar action. The Veterans of Foreign Wars likewise backed repeal in California.
CHINESE AMERICANS
319
nationals in one respect: the annual quota is granted to Chinese and
ngt to China, so that the immigration quota applies to all persons of
Chinese descent, whether they are residents of China or of some other
country.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
Settlements. Almost nine tenths of the Chinese Americans are city-
dwellers. Eight large metropolitan areas contain the bulk of Chinese
population. Next to the impressive concentration in the San Fran-
cisco Bay cities, New York City has the largest Chinese colony.
Los Angeles and Chicago rank next. Philadelphia, Boston, Portland,
and Seattle have over a thousand each. Chicago, Cleveland, St.
Louis, and Detroit are the only cities that have lured settlements of
Chinese far inland; Chicago has approximately 2,000, and the others
only several hundred each. Newark, Baltimore, and San Diego, with
their coastal locations, have four to six hundred Chinese inhabitants.
The small Chinatown of the nation’s capital is about the same size.
The expatriates thrive best in large communities of their fellow coun-
trymen.
Stories of ’49’s fabulous successes in California gilded it with bright
hopes of wealth, and for the Chinese newcomers the name of America’s
western coast was Kum Shan, “the Golden Hill.” Since San Fran-
cisco was the port of entry through which most of the gold-rushers
from China reached this gilded land, the port came to be their symbol
for all Kum Shan. Today, although San Francisco is also called
“No. I City,” its recognized name among Chinese-speaking Ameri-
cans is still Kum Shan.
In this Chinese metropolis of the new world and neighboring set-
tlements on the west coast, the Chinese have retained greater auton-
omy than any other immigrant group. On a yearly concession from
an American telephone company, the Chinese company has its own
directory, in Chinese, and its own exchange, in a pagoda-shaped build-
ing just off Grant Avenue. Holes on the switchboard are numbered,
as on other telephone switchboards, and every subscriber has a tele-
phone number; but the Chinese prefer to call their friends by name,
and the operator gives the right number from memory. Among the
other special facilities of the Chinese in San Francisco are five daily
newspapers in their own language, which circulate to other Chinese
expatriates within a radius of 2,000 miles.
In New York, the Chinese are mainly small shopkeepers, art and
curio dealers, domestic workers and laundrymen. They live in some
320
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
of the city’s worst tenements. Their few doctors, artists, and teach-
ers have a clientele largely limited to their own countrymen. “China-
town,” so familiar to out-of-town sightseers, is a sharply defined
area of short, narrow streets in the Bowery district northwest of
Chatham Square.
Orgmhations. Chinese fraternal organizations, which once cen-
tered about the much publicized tongs, have shifted, and the nature
of the tongs themselves has changed. Once marked by racketeering,
gambling, and bloodshed, tong affairs have been quiet for some years.
For the most part, the tongs have returned to their original character
of benevolent and protective societies. The two main tongs in China-
town are still the Hip Sings and the On Leong Tong. The Chinese
Consolidated Benevolent Society, enrolling members of both organ-
izations, now adjudicates all tong disputes.
The Chinese publish three daily newspapers in New York, the
largest of which is the liberal Chinese Journal, which boasts a circula-
tion of 8,000. Other papers include the Chinese Nationalist Daily,
organ of the Kuomintang’s New York branch, and the Chinese Re-
public News, featuring mainly Chinese Masonic Lodge news. There
is also the Chinese Vanpiard, a weekly published by the left-wing
Chinese Workers’ Club.
Chinese New Year’s day, which happens anywhere from the first
of January to mid-February, is still celebrated with dragon parades
and firecrackers, but is almost the only occasion for a large-scale
observance. The Chinese commemorate the birth and death of Sun
Yat-sen and the founding of the Chinese Republic. They maintain
a complete school for their children, a Chinese dramatic society which
stages Chinese plays, and two Bowery movie houses which show
Chinese films after lo p.m.*
Since men migrate in advance of women, and migration of Chinese
was stopped before a natural adjustment took place, there are more
than four times as many men as women among the population of
transplanted Chinese communities. In fact, there have never been in
this country enough Chinese girls for the Chinese young men to
marry. When the census of 1940 was taken, there were 77,504
Chinese in the country, 57,389 males and 20,115 females. Of the
total, 40,262 were native-born American citizens, but of these only
14,560 were females. Presumably, a larger number of native-born
Chinese girls had returned to China.
^ Based on Federal Writers’ Project, New York Tcmorama, pp. 118-120, NeW
York; Random House, 1938,
CHINESE AMERICANS
321
Although many associate the Chinese with gang (tong) warfare,
opium smoking, and other offenses, the actual criminal record of the
Chinese is remarkably low, as shown by a careful study of Professor
Walter G. Beach.® Contrary to the general belief, the tongs are an
American product.® They originated in California and Nevada dur-
ing the early gold rush and had their inception in the theory that
might makes right. The meaning of the word tong is “protective
society.” For a yearly fee, one tong will guarantee protection to
its members against any enemies that they may happen to have in a
rival tong. While all activities of the tongs are not commendable,
most tongs perform useful social functions: they act as private courts
by settling disputes, serve as insurance or mutual benefit organiza-
tions, maintain schools, and provide for social intercourse on the
same basis as do American social organizations.’’
Second- and third-generation problems. The greatest problem is,
however, presented by the American-bom Chinese of foreign-bom
parents. Contrary to the tendency of most other immigrant groups,
for the most part the foreign-bom Chinese have been curiously pas-
sive and indifferent to the opinion of Americans about them. This is
partly, at least, the result of the hostihty and prejudices of the domi-
nant whites against them. It is reflected in the Chinatowns with
their Oriental customs and traditions; and it must not be also for-
gotten that Chinatown is the place visited by Americans on their
“slumming parties,” and on special occasions when the Chinese New
Year Festival, the Festival of Lanterns, the Visiting of Tombs, the
Festival of the Full Moon, and others, are viewed by curious visitors.
It is then, in addition to a thousand and one minor or major occasions,
that the Aunerican-bom Chinese is forced to realize his anomalous
social position. These Chinese are culturally real “Aonericans,” or
as nearly so as are the children of other European immigrants. They
are traditional Americans in everything but slight physical mark-
ings, which sometimes become nearly indistinguishable, yet are suffi-
cient to throw these young Americans into a distinct caste. They
leam, contrary to the experience of the American children, that their
world around them does not grow as they do but is really becoming
smaller and smaller. As children, they are tacitly accepted; as adults.
^See W. G. Beach, Oriental Crime in California, Stanford University Press, 1932.
6 See “A Chinese War Hero,” Literary Digest^ LXXXIII (December 13, 1924),
p. 13.
7 A. W- Palmer, Orimals in American Life, p. 29. New York: Friendship Press,
322
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
they are grounded in a Chinatown against their wishes and ambi-
tions.
All this presents a serious problem — one that starts usually during
the attendance of the American-bom Chinese in the American school.
Racial consciousness is developed through association with school-
mates, especially in the upper grades. Unless this racial antagonism
is checked, or unless there are only one or two Chinese members of
the school, prejudices crop up on every side. In California these
American youngsters have — or until very recently have had — ^no part
in the school social life except among their own people. They are
forced to realize that the “Chinatown” background and the biological
heritage are handicapping them. They become dissatisfied with their
parents’ social and economic status in the American community.
Wanting to become fused into the American group and to escape
the barriers set against them, they prepare for some kind of profes-
sion or skilled occupation. But until now, at least, they have en-
countered discrimination in almost every occupation, except those
not desired by the Americans. “It has not been at all uncommon for
University of California graduates, with Ph.D. degrees and Phi Beta
Kappa keys, to be forced to accept jobs as cooks and waiters.”®
And what is even worse, many of them belong to the second, third,
and fourth generation — since the Chinese are perhaps the oldest
immigrant group in California.
These conditions again promote a great social distance between
the older and younger generations. Many could solve their problems
by looking to China for their life work, but large numbers of them
have not learned Chinese, since their parents speak English. They
are accustomed to American ways of thinking to the extent that they
do not fit in with the Chinese culture. Others seek their social status
in the Chinese community. But even the Chinatowns are gradually
losing their distinctively old-world pattern with the passing of the
Chinese-bom founders and with the inroads of Americanism. In-
escapably, the commonest answer — ^up to 1943 — has been “What is
the use?” Both the old and the new generation became highly
skeptical, not only of the value of acquiring an education, but also
of American political ideas. In fact, for years the Chinese were able
to point with pride to one of the lowest crime rates of any ethnic
group in America; but by 1940 observers began to note the appearance
8 Carey McWilliams, Brothers under the Skin, pp. 103-104. Boston: Little, Brown
and Company, 1943. T^^is is the most recent and best available survey of the prob-
lem of A^eric^ Chiiiese. See, Chapter 11 , “The Long-Suffering Chinese,” pp. 79-1 ij.
CHINESE AMERICANS
^23
of factors making for a sharp increase in juvenile delinquency.® The
Chinese family showed signs of disintegration and the gap between
parents and children was steadily widening.
World War 11 and changes in outlooks. It took Pearl Harbor to
bring about some changes in this truly difficult situation. War in-
dustries started hiring Chinese Americans as stenographers, timekeep-
ers, welders, carpenters, shipyard and aircraft workers. Government
agencies employed them and gave them positions of responsibihty.
“As the younger Chinese moved outward into the American com-
munity, antique shops and chop-suey restaurants and hand laundries
began to close their doors.” What the future will hold for them
if we return to a period of economic competition cannot be known
now. One thing is certain, they have found a freedom they will not
willingly relinquish.
Contributions to American Life
Strange to say, the contributions of the Chinese to America’s
heritage are mostly the result of the hostility developed against him.
We must not forget, of course, the hardships of the heavy work done
by Chinese laborers during the development of our West. But the
most obvious impress left by the Chinese is in two fields that are a
component part of our culture.
With the rising hostility of American public opinion against his
economic competition, the Chinese had enough good sense to with-
draw from most of the competitive occupations into the occupations
that supplement those of the whites but do not compete with them.^’-
Many Americans are, therefore, surprised to learn that no Chinese ever
saw a starched collar or a wlute sheet before coming to America.
Not only the laundry business has been developed by them, but one
of the most popular American dishes, the famed chop suey, is their
invention. Chop suey is not, surprising to say, a Chinese dish, but
rather an American dish developed on the basis of the ingenious
Chinese idea that the American prefers a large amount of food served
for a small cost.
The impress of the Chinese culture is not limited to these fields
only. There are countless Chinese curio shops in America. Many
® McWilliams, op. cit.y p. 104.
McWilliams, op. ck., p, icxS.
See R. D. McKenzie, “The Oriental Invasion,” Journal of Applied Sociology
X (1925), pp. 125-126; R. E. Park, “Our Racial Frontier on the Pacific/ Survey
LVI (1926), p. 196.
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
3H
of OUT motion picture palaces have taken over from the Chinese
culture and from the Chinese-American pleasure estabhshments their
concepts of Chinese art and incorporated them into the gaudy and
splashy decorations which the American movie-goer loves so dearly.
Leading Chinese scholars are invited to address our institutes and
our leading universities.
A few Chinese Americans have made notable names for themselves.
Dr. Chien-Shiung Wo has come to be recognized as one of the most
b rillian t young physicists in this country. Dr. Maurice William,
the author of a refutation of Marxism that political scientists say
radically changed the thinking of Dr. Sun, received the Order of the
Jade from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek for the part he played in
determining China’s history, although he had never visited that
country. He was the only foreign member of the Kuomintang, the
Chinese Nationalist Party, in 1944. Mustang pilot Lieutenant Wau
Kau Kong, Chinese pilot with the United States Air Force in Britain,
was lost in action in 1 944. Many more might be named from these
and other fields if space permitted.
After the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion laws word came that
the Chinese of Hawaii, in a special “gratitude drive,” had bought
more than a million dollars’ worth of war bonds “to give concrete
evidence of their thanks to America.”
Xo a greater extent than is true of many of the other nationality
groups, contribution is reciprocal, for we have given much to the
Chinese Americans and have received much from them. The in-
fluence of America’s culture on Quna through Chinese immigrants
cannot be measured. A large number of the Chinese who have re-
turned to China have contributed to the development of their country
by the money and ideas gained during their stay in America. Hun-
dreds of Chinese students, who constitute the bulk of Chinese “immi-
gration” today, have benefited by the benevolence of the American
government in applying funds acquired by the Boxer indemnity for
the education of Chinese in America. Quite a score of them stand
high in administrative and other positions in their state. In fact, the
Chinese student educated in America has become one of the strongest
social forces in the development of the “new” China. We need
only to recall how many times it has been repeated that the wife of the
famed Chinese leader. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, was educated
in Wellesley.
^^The Nations CLVIII (March ii, 1944), p. 307*
JAPANESE AMERICANS
325
Chinese Americans responded wholeheartedly to the cry for help
from the motherland when Japan began her rape of China and raised
large amounts by means of “drives” for relief funds. Chinese children
sold memorial poppies and buttons bearing the flag of the Chinese
Republic, and Chinese Americans crowded around their newspaper
ofiices to read the news from the battle front, although many of them
knew their abused land only through the tales their fathers and
grandfathers had told them about it.
F. JAPANESE AAdERICANS
Joseph S. Roucek
Although the Alien Registration program of 1940 showed that
only about a third of the 127,000 Japanese Americans in the United
States were aliens and two thirds were native bom and hence citizens,
the problem of the Japanese minority has long been one of the most
troublesome in the United States. As an internal problem, it might
have been magnified out of its true proportion; but as an inseparable
part of the international relations between the United States and
Japan, its importance could not be overestimated. In this latter re-
spect, in particular, it has been a dynamite-laden problem. Since
1882, when the first Asiatic Exclusion Law was passed, we have re-
fused to look squarely into this emotionalized problem, which had
little counterpart in our treatment of any other minority group.
Immigration
Japanese immigration has much in common with the influx of
various European peoples — ^in motivation, initial efforts to earn a
livelihood, hostility aroused among groups within the economy, and
final emergence of the newcomers in limited fields of endeavor.
But racial difference has complicated the Japanese problem, narrow-
ing for the Japanese American the area of occupational opportunity
and contact with the established community.
Prior to 1900, Japanese arrivals were less than i per cent of the
total annual volume of immigration to America’s shores.^ Early
Japanese entrants were shipwrecked sailors or occasional stowaways
on foreign vessels; later, casual sojourners came and returned home
* The most receat survey k “National Defense Migration, Fourth Interim Report of
the Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration,” Findings and 'Recom-
mendations on Evacuation of Enemy Aliens and Others from Frohibited Military
Zones, Washingtmi, D. G., Government Printing Office, 1942, pp. 59-226.
326 ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
or sailed for other lands. Total Japanese population in the United
States was 55 in 1870, 148 in 1880; it rose to 2,039 1890, after
the Imperial government had legalized the emigration of laborers
(in 1885) and exclusion of Chinese by the act of 1882 had created
a void in the labor supply for Japanese to fill. During the next
decade Japanese arrivals increased until in 1900 they reached a peak
of 1 2,628. This marked advance over the 2,844 who had landed here
the preceding year is attributed to the inclusion of a large number of
Japanese originally bound for Honolulu, who were diverted to San
Francisco because of an outbreak of bubonic plague on the island.
From 1901 to 1910, 54,929 Japanese immigrants were admitted to
the continental United States, but this number was swelled by an
estimated 37,000 from Hawaii who were not counted in the total
Japanese admitted; 4,154 of these were classified as nonimmigrants,
and some 9,000 were believed to have crossed the Mexican border
to the United States illegally.
The Japanese came here in response to demands for fresh sources of
labor by the developing Pacific and mountain states, as well as to
escape from an impoverished homeland. After the annexation of
Hawaii, Japanese laborers, discouraged by their government from
emigrating to the continental United States, used Hawaii as a stepping-
stone to the mainland. There were also the students, who came for
education in western science and ways of living, and the young men
desiring to avoid military service. “Golden stories” about the promise
of life in America, written by the first immigrants to their townsfolk,
encouraged further immigration. The emigration societies advertised
for emigrants through traveling solicitors and literature, arranging the
voyage to America for a fee of ten to twenty yen.
United States public opinion against Japanese immigration. The
international importance of the problem came to a head in 1906
when relations between Tokyo and Washington had become greatly
strained over the question of Japanese immigration into the United
States. California, where most Japanese immigrants settled, de-
manded that their admission be stopped. The growing opposition
of the white population led to a number of serious clashes along the
west coast. Schools refused to admit Japanese students. In fact,
the San Francisco school dispute in 1906 brought the conflict into
the open.
Tokyo was confronted with the problem either of insisting on its
treaty rights, which guaranteed unrestricted admission of its subjects
to the United States, or of coming to an amicable settlement of the
JAPANESE AMERICANS 3^7
question with Washington. The former alternative was bound to
put a continuous strain on the relations between the two countries.
Japan, however, needed the good will of the United States at that
time in order to carry out her expansionist plans; and so the Japanese
government gave in, and in the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” of 1907
pledged itself to prohibit any further emigration to the United States.
But the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” again did not settle the problem.
Japanese immigration to America continued and a total of 83,837
came during the decade 1911 to 1920. Hostile resolutions and bills
were introduced in Cahfomia, Nevada, Oregon, and Montana legis-
latures in 1909 and 1910, and subsequently.
The California law of May 19, 1913, provided, in effect, that the
Japanese might lease agricultural lands for a maximum of three years;
lands already owned or acquired in the future in satisfaction of exist-
ing liens might be retained but could not be bequeathed to heirs
under a citizenship disabihty. But again, this did not settle the prob-
lem. The Japanese used various devices to circumvent the land law.
Some purchased agricultural land in the names of their minor children
bom on American soil, for whom they acted as guardians, or paid
American citizens to purchase land and hold it for them or their
children. Another fairly common practice was to form dummy cor-
porations in which perhaps 50 per cent of the stock was held by an
American, usually the corporation’s attorney, who in reality held only
a “naked trust” and had no voice in the management of the cor-
poration’s affairs.
World War I only intensified the problem. The progress made
by Japanese-American farmers during the war irritated many; those
let out from the factories resented Japanese control of land; the re-
turning soldiers, contrasting their economic insecurity with the Jap-
anese situation, were easily aroused. Agitation was fanned by the
award of Shantung to Japan and Japanese activity in Siberia, Man-
churia, and Korea. Critics pointed out that many Japanese coming
into the country as students, profession! men, and merchants, were,
in fact, disguised spies. The custom of bringing Yoshi (adopted chil-
dren) and picture brides was also pointed out as a means of evading
the agreement of 1907. After the Japanese agreed to what has been
called a “ladies’ agreement” and ceased issuing passports to the brides
after Febraary 25, 1920, agitation was transferred to the “Kankodan”
system, under which an immigrant would take a short trip to Japan,
marry, and return with his bride.
The economic arguments ascribed to the Japanese tremendous ad-
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
328
vantages in competition because of aid received from their govern-
ment, their low standard of living, and their well-knit organizations.
But overshadowing the economic objections to the Japanese, the claim
of nonassimilability— “once a Jap always a Jap”— was voiced con-
tinuously. Japanese worship of the Mikado was held to be an in-
surmountable barrier to good American citizenship. As a result,
the California Land Law of 1913 was amended, depriving a Japanese
of the right to lease agricultural land, to act as guardian for a native-
born minor if his estate consisted of property which the Japanese
could not hold under the law, or to transfer property with intent to
evade the law. Following California’s example, Oregon, Washing-
ton, Idaho, Nebraska, Texas, Delaware, Colorado, and New Mexico
passed similar laws.
The Exclusion Act of 1^24. In 1922, in the Ozawa case, the
United States Supreme Court declared that Japanese were outside
the zone of those who could become naturalized. Japanese ex;clu-
sionism coincided with the general campaign to restrict immigration.
Popular indignation was aroused by a note from the Japanese am-
bassador Hanihara to Secretary of State Hughes mentioning the
“grave consequences” which would ensue if the exclusion clause were
passed. The Exclusion Act became law in 1924.
Trends in eoncentration. During the years 1913 through 1920,
Japanese aliens entered the continental United States in steadily in-
creasing numbers, totaling 77,936 for the entire period; 59,098 de-
parted, leaving a net accession from abroad of 18,838. These, to-
gether with previous immigrants and American-bom children, set
the total Japanese population in continental United States at 111,010
in 1920.
After 1924, Japanese immigration fell off sharply, though profes-
sional men, merchants, and others continued to enter the United
States. Immigration totals are; 33,462 from 1921 to 1930; 1,948 from
1931 to 1940; and 353 to June 30, 1943. Students, merchants, gov-
ernment officials, ministers of religion and their families, and bona fide
residents returning from a visit to Japan — ^all of whom were regarded
as nonimmigrants or nonquota immigrants — ^made up their number.
Emigration continued, and it is interesting and perhaps significant that
in the year before Pearl Harbor over 2,000 returned to Japan.
In 1920 there were approximately 127,000 Japanese foreign bom
and citizens in the United States of whom 112,000 resided in the
three west coast states — 83 per cent in California and most of these
in Los Ajigeles County. Of the Japanese affected by the evacuation
JAPANESE AMERICANS
329
order of 1942, about 41,000 were aliens; about 71,000 were Ameri-
can citizens. Unlike other immigrant groups, the Japanese have
shown no tendency to disperse; on the contrary, they were more
densely concentrated on December 7, 1941, than they had been
twenty years before. Furthermore, a number of factors have served
to preserve their ties with the homeland, and particularly so because
the Japanese are recent immigrants. The immigrant groups were
tied, through the presence on the west coast of numerous Japanese
mercantile and financial concerns, to the Japanese-controlled firms,
and, through them, to the consulates. Barred by law from becoming
American citizens, the Japanese were driven to concentrate in certain
areas and to organize as a group. Because of the Exclusion Act and
the Alien Land Act, some of these Japanese harbored deep-seated re-
sentments against America.
An additional factor was their concentration in agriculture. About
20,000, or 50 per cent, of those gainfully employed in California
were in that occupation. Hence they tended to develop their com-
munities, whose ties were strengthened by race prejudices, in Seattle,
Portland, Tacoma, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
They produced peas, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, berries,
and so on, near large urban centers, with Little Tokyo settlements
located in the respective cities.
Unfortunately, many Japanese settlements, in the words of Colonel
Karl Bendetsen, were “deployed through very sensitive and very
vital areas.” Since the Japanese were already in these particular
areas before they became vital defense zones (the Terminal Island in
the center of Los Angeles harbor, the Puget Sound, on Bainbridge
Island, near the Bremerton Navy Yard), here was a very unfortu-
nate coincidence. For example, in Seattle, the Japanese operated
2,076 hotels, many along the waterfront, which in many cases be-
came an almost impenetrable screen for espionage activities.
The age-youth conflict. Little islands in a hostile sea, and cut off
from the rest of the population, the Japanese Americans were divided
even more sharply among themselves. The one group is young, the
other is old — ^there are virtually no middle-aged. The former are
die Nisei, the native-bom American generation. The latter are the
Issei, the original immigrant stock. The average age of the Nisei
was nineteen in 1939; that of the Issei was fifty-eight, and his average
period of residence in this country was thirty years.
This unusual youth-age abyss is complicated by the gulf that
separates two totally unlike cultures. The cessation of all immigra-
330 ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
tion in 1924 helped to fix the economic and social leadership in the
original immigrant group to the exclusion of the American-bom
and educated Nisei. In many cases, the parents sent their children
to Japanesedanguage schools or arranged for them to receive part
of their education in Japan; the same considerations prompted many
parents to register their children (about one third of those born in
California) with the Japanese consulates as Japanese citizens.
White reports that the Issei are ‘‘more Japanese than the Japanese
themselves,” since they have clung desperately to the mores of the old,
unaware that modern Japan has moved on.^ But their children have
gone to school, many of them to American colleges, and have ac-
quired a mentality that separates them sharply from their fathers.
Many of them are fellow citizens of ours, educated in American
schools, trained in American business and professions, and these suffer
from the effects of the inflamed prejudices and public opinion which
are prone to judge the Japanese not on the basis of the individual
but rather on a racial basis, regardless of his citizenship.
It might not be amiss to mention also that economic facts have
played an important contributory part in the feeling against the
Japanese on the west coast. In a report to the Tolan Congressional
Committee by the Seattle Chapter of the Japanese- American Citizens’
League, it was pointed out that, for instance, in Seattle owners of
hotel properties had pressed for the removal of Japanese so that
they might take over the now profitable hotel business; in rural areas,
farmers showed their desire to get control of rich lands leased by
Japanese farmers.®
NkeL Alienated culturally from their fathers by American citi-
zenship, American education, and American thinking, and from their
fellow citizens by their appearance and by racial antipathies, the
Nisei have been forced into a fierce group consciousness and an in-
tense gregariousness. The result was that in 1929 the first Nisei
organized the now powerful Japanese-American Citizens League,
with the slogan, “Building Toward Responsible Citizenship.” In
1939 there were 486 Nisei organizations — sports, religious, cultural,
civic, fraternal, social, and so on — on the western coast alone. They
had to face for years the agitation of the California Joint Immigra-
tion Committee, which sponsored much of the anti-Japanese and anti-
2Magner White, “Between Two Flags,’’ The Saturday Evening Post, CCXII
(September 30, 1939), pp. 14
3 Galen M. Fisher, “Japanese Evacuation from the Pacific Coast,” Far Eastern
Survey (June 29, 1942), p. 145.
JAPANESE AMERICANS
331
Oriental legislation in America, and the national defense committee
of American Legion Navy Post No. 278 in Los Angeles, which pro-
posed the fishing bills which would have forbidden any but citizens
of the United States to operate fishing boats off the California coast.
The American-bom Nisei fought such legislation, as well as the Le-
gion-sponsored legislation for fingerprinting aliens and requiring them
to report to authorities every ninety days. The Nisei opposed such
legislation by arguments that most of the fishermen were “ Issei’ —
ninety-seven out of a hundred, inehgible to citizenship — ^who had
lived in America most of their fives; being technically aliens, the pro-
posed bill would have cut off their living. The fingerprinting bill
was “not in keeping with our understanding of American tolerance;
it would impose a humiliating requirement upon ‘Issei’ who are just
as law-abiding, just as wiUing taxpayers as any other group in the
country.” *
Dual citizenship. One of the most serious problems faced by the
Nisei is dual citizenship. In 1942 there were in the neighborhood of
90,000 Japanese in the state of California, a large number of whom
were in possession of dual citizenship, under a Japanese law of De-
cember I, 1924, called the New Nationality Law.® Under that law,
Japanese born in the United States after that date automatically lost
Japanese citizenship unless within fourteen days they were registered
at the Japanese consulate. The law further provided that those who
registered, as well as those bom in America before December, 1924,
could renounce Japanese citizenship by declaration at the Japanese
consulate after reaching their twentieth year. But the records of the
California Joint Immigration Committee show that the Japanese so
born did not repatriate themselves by renouncing their Japanese
citizenship other than to the extent of from one fourth to about
one third, and that the remainder retained their citizenship. Loss of
family standing and inheritance in Japan were the chief reasons given
for lack of expatriation.
Shadoax) of the Axis over Japanese Americans. In 1940, the
shadow of the treaty by which Japan joined Germany and Italy in
military alliance fell over the flowered fields and coastal cliffs of
southern California. For many months suspicious California had dis-
^ White, op» cit^ p. 73-
5 Testimony of Robert H. Fouke, representing the California Joint Immigration
Committee, before the Tolan Committee, Select Committee Investigating National
Defense Aligration, Problems of Evacuation of Enemy Aliens ^ and Others from
Prohibited Military Zones, Washington, D. C., Government Printing OiEce, 1942,
p. I 1070.
332
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
liked the spectacle of Japanese farmers tending fruit and flowers
amid oil fields and near airports and aircraft factories. Civilians and
naval authorities alike had looked askance on Japanese fishing boats
cruising near United States warships during maneuvers, and were
wondering why Japanese fishermen and canners were permitted to
live on Terminal Island, within gunshot of the naval operating base
at San Pedro. Why did Japanese Americans cross the ocean by hun-
dreds each year to visit their ancestral homes.^ Why did so many
radio masts sprout from Japanese homes in Cahfomia?
The Nisei sought to answer some of the questions by declaring
that most of the lands they tilled had been farmlands long before
drillers tapped the oil stores underneath. They pointed out that their
slow old fishing boats (rumored to be torpedo boats in disguise) had
been locally built and were physically unable to carry the heavy air-
compression machinery required to discharge torpedoes, and that
fishermen’s barracks on the Terminal Island all had radio masts be-
cause ship-to-shore communication is necessary in the fishing business.
The Japanese American Citizens League, chief national organization
of the Nisei, supported conscription and announced that 16,500 Jap-
anese Americans were eligible for the draft (approximately 9,000
Nisei entered the United States Army),® that Japanese Americans
had fought with the A.E.F. in the first World War and would fight
again in the next, as most second-generation Japanese in America are
proud of their American citizenship. In fact, a confidential memo-
randum by an American intelligence officer reported after Pearl
Harbor that “many of the ‘Nisei’ voluntarily contributed valuable
antisubversive information to . . . governmental agencies,” and “the
Japanese Consular staff, the Central Japanese Association, and others
known to have been sympathetic to the Japanese cause did not them-
selves trust the ‘Nisei’.” ’’
By and large, however, the Nisei had been on a definite road of
Americanization and many had been encouraged by their parents.
When there had been opposition, it had been due to the loyalty of
some of their parents to Japan, strengthened by the Japanese con-
sular system, and, above all, the fact that the parents could not be-
come citizens of the United States though they had the status of
«Kazu)Tiki, Takahashi, “The Nisei and Selective Service,” New Republic, CX
(March 20, 1944), p. 382.
^ An Intelligence Officer, “The Japanese in America,” Harpet^s Magazine, CLXXXV
(October, 1942), p. 491.
JAPANESE AMERICANS 333
legal residents, “That some of the ‘Nisei’ children are more Ameri-
canized than others is not so much a measure of the success of an
Americanization program as it is a measure of the strength of the
opposition to such a program, usually on the part of the parents.
Unless there is a conscious, active, continuous opposition, the child
will absorb Americanization as naturally as he breathes.” ®
KibeL The word Kibei (pronounced kee-bay) means “returned
to America,” It refers to those Nisei who spent all or a large por-
tion of their lives in Japan and who returned to the United States.
As the Nisei grew older and more American, many of the Issei,
hoping to retain some bond with their swiftly changing children,
sent them to Japan to be “Japanized.” These are known as “Kibei
Shimin,” and there were some 50,000 of them in Japan in 1937, when
they were urged to return to California and other Pacific states by
the Japanese Foreign Office. They were received into full member-
ship by the Japanese American Citizens’ League, although they were
practically alien Japanese.® It was estimated that in 1942 more than
25,000 United States citizens of Japanese parentage had been educated
in schools in Japan.^°
This group was considered “the most potentially dangerous ele-
ment of all” by an intelligence officer of the United States, “ who
concluded that “these people are essentially and inherently Japanese
and may have been deliberately sent back to the United States by
the Japanese government to act as agents. In spite of their legal
citizenship and the protection afforded them by the Bill of Rights,
they should be looked upon as enemy ahens.^® In fact, he states
that “such persons must be considered guilty until proven innocent
beyond a reasonable doubt,” recommends that “they should be segre-
gated from those not in that classification,” and suggests that “the
parents or guardians who sent them back to Japan must have done
so for a reason” and “are equally suspect.”
Japanese schools. When the first Nisei started coming home from
school talking English, the Issei tried to retain some hold on their
children by establishing the Japanese-language schools, called gakuen,
which came to be viewed by so many people as hotbeds of Japanese
s An Intelligence Officer, op, cit., p. 494.
® Select Committee, op. cit., pp. 11077,
I bid. y p. 11082.
Ibid., pp. 489-497.
334
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
propaganda and anti-American intrigue.^® In San Francisco, Los
Angeles, and Seattle, the three major centers of Japanese population,
the schools were subsidized in numerous ways by the Tokyo gov-
ernment and teachers were invariably alien Japanese. These schools
were one of the mainstays of the isolationism of the Japanese Amer-
icans. Japanese Buddhist teachers were brought in under the excep-
tion provision of the immigration laws. Their religious as well as
their educational background was Japanese as to culture, ideas, ideals,
action, and thought. In 1941 there were 248 of the Japanese-language
schools in California, teaching about 1 8,000 children the culture and
emperor worship of Japan daily after public school hours and on
Saturday.’^* In 1939 these schools cost the Japanese $398,000.
Japanese organizations. One of the outstanding factors charac-
terizing the life of the Japanese Americans has been that they have been
very closely organized. In California a large number of Japanese
organizations covered every branch of life; agricultural, commercial,
educational, social, religious, and patriotic. Almost every Japanese
in California was included in one or more of these organizations.
All these organizations were, in turn, closely integrated by means
of interlocking directorates and officers, honorary advisers, and inter-
locking membership among the ordinary members. There was also
a close relationship between Japanese associations in California and
parent or governmental organizations in Japan, and “on many oc-
casions the associations in California have contributed to and assisted
in the war effort of the Japanese Government.” The extensiveness
of the system can be appreciated from Tokyo’s report of April 25,
1941, to the effect that the Japanese “Central Council of Overseas
Organizations announced that there are 2,700 Japanese organizations
in the United States, representatives of which will meet for a con-
vention in Tokyo in November, 1941.” The Japanese Veterans
Association of America, for instance, numbering at one time 8,000
members, showed a Japanese motion picture entitled “Flaming Skies,”
and sponsored the tour of Major G. Tanaka, of the Japanese Army,
and a member of the army general staff, who arrived in San Francisco
on January i, 1941, “with fuU uniform, sword, and medals and toured
the state lecturing before various Japanese groups, eventually return-
IS In 1921 California assumed control of the gakuen, making attendance compul-
sory, but in 1927 the attorney general ruled this unconstitutional.
Select Committee, op, cit.^ p. 11086.
Select Committee, op, cit,^ p. 10975.
JAPANESE AMERICANS 335
ing to Japan via New York. While here, he is reported to have said:
‘Japan and the United States will go to war this autumn.’ ”
Relocating Japanese Americans
In 1942 the army decided it a wise and necessary policy to remove
the first- and second-generation Japanese from the west coast and
send them to camps in the interior. On February 19, 1942, President
Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the army to evacuate
anyone, alien or citizen, from military areas.
Thus, for the first time in American history, the government
evacuated all members of one racial group from their places of
permanent settlement on the Pacific coast to designated and confined
areas. Of the n 0,000 persons thus affected, the 70,000 who were
American citizens became exiles in their native land.
As a Cahfomia observer. Professor Floyd A. Cave of San Francisco
State College, points out, “behind the decision of army authorities
to move all Japanese out of coastal areas along the Pacific Coast were
a number of important factors,” and “allegations of critics of the
policy that it was actuated by economic and patriotic pressure groups,
self-seeking politicians, scare mongers of the radio and press, and war
hysteria on the part of the people generally, all contain a measure of
truth, yet they fail to give us a comprehensive picture of the situa-
tion as a whole.”
Relocation centers. The United States government, having called
upon the Japanese Americans to move from their homes, also assumed
a responsibility for helping them to become re-estabhshed. To carry
this program into execution, the President on March 18, 1942, created
a civilian agency known as the War Relocation Authority, which
established the relocation centers. They were formed for two pri-
mary purposes: (i) To provide communities where evacuees might
live and contribute, through work, to their own support pending
their gradual reabsorption into private employment and normal Amer-
ican life; and (2) to serve as wartime homes for those evacuees who
might be unable or unfit to relocate in ordinary American communi-
ties.
Under regulations adopted in September, 1942, the War Reloca-
tion Authority started working toward a steady depopulation of the
p. 10976.
Floyd A. Cave, “The Exclusion and Relocation of Pacific Coast Japanese,”
Imer cultural Education News, IV (October, 1942).
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
33*5
centers by encouraging all able-bodied residents with good records
of behavior to re-enter private employment in agriculture or in-
dustry.^®
The work of the WRA was not, however, without its troubles.
While the great majority of the residents of the centers appeared
loyal to the United States and sympathetic to its war aims, some
refused to pledge loyalty or good behavior; in May, 1943, plans were
made to segregate the residents of relocation centers on the basis of
national loyalty. The Tule Lake center in northern California was
designated as the segregation center, to be the place of residence
for those whose loyalties lie with Japan rather than with the United
States. Included among the segregants in the Tule Lake center were
persons who requested repatriation or expatriation to Japan, those
who refused to pledge loyalty to the United States, and persons who,
because of unfavorable intelligence reports or other records of un-
American behavior in the past, were found to be ineligible for leave
under WRA procedures.^®
By the end of January, 1943, west coast Japanese Americans were
leaving the War Relocation Authority’s ten centers at the rate of 75
a day, in accordance with regulations granting them indefinite leave
on evidence that they had employment or other means of support
and after investigation by both the project director and the national
WRA office. Between October, 1942, and January, 1943, about
1,300 left the centers. Next to those leaving for domestic service,
the second largest group entered agriculture and secretarial and steno-
graphic work, and the rest carried on a variety of work, industrial
to photographic; a majority of all these worked in the Rocky Moun-
tain states, Utah and Colorado especially.
The American Friends Service Committee concerned itself only
with the relocation of Japanese-American students in colleges and
universities in the mid-western and eastern colleges. Many of the
2,500 evacuated Japanese-American college students were members
of local Student Christian Associations, to whom the Committee de-
cided to “extend the hand of fellowship and aid at this particular time,”
for they were “one of us — ^American, Christian, deeply loyal to demo-
ns Cf. War Relocation Authority, Relocation of Japanese- Americans, Washington,
D. C., 1943.
For the citations of the various theses supporting or denying the sabotage and
disloyal practices of Japanese Americans, see Joseph S. Roucek, “American Japanese,
Pearl Harbor and World War 11 ,” Journal of Negro Education, XII (Fall, 1042),
pp. 633-649-
JAPANESE AMERICANS
337
cratic living.”^® In a letter dated May 21, 1942, to Clarence E.
Pickett from Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, approval
was given to the plan for university education. The program also
had the endorsement and cooperation of the United States OlEce of
Education and the War Relocation Authority. Serving on the execu-
tive and regional committees were such leading educators as Robert G.
Sproul, president of the University of California, Monroe E. Duetsch,
vice-president of the University of California, Remson E. Bird, presi-
dent of Occidental College, Dean J. C. DeVoss, San Jose State College,
Dean Mary C. Baker, Fresno State College, and others. By November
II, 1942, of the 2,166 questionnaires received from students, more
than 500 students had been accepted by some college and 340 had
secured travel permits. The institutions were located in twenty-four
different states ranging from Maine to Massachusetts. In January,
1945, when restrictions on movements of loyal Japanese were lifted,
students were permitted to resume their studies in west coast colleges.
On July 30, 1944, the War Relocation Authority reported that there
had been no sabotage and no espionage among the citizens of Jap-;-
anese ancestry in the relocation areas, and probably a smaller number
of minor crimes and misdemeanors than would be found in another
group of 125,000 persons. In World War II Japanese Americans
served in the army in Italy. Bond purchases by evacuees ranked
about the same as among other workers in the same wage class. Many
of these citizens gave blood to the Red Cross. About 25 per cent of
the approximately 110,000 Japanese originally confined in the bar-
racks-hke settlements in and west of the Rockies began making their
own li ving by 1944. Even then steps had been taken to provide for
the postwar relocation of these “citizen hostages” in the nine areas
(other than Tule Lake), but there was opposition to their return
to some communities, especially in California. It is hoped that their
record during the war will prevent the transfer of the feeling toward
the Japanese-in-Asia to the great majority of Japanese Americans who
demonstrated their loyalty to the United States.
Contributions to American Life
In spite of aU the criticism directed against Japanese Americans,
they have contributed their share to the upbuilding of America.
^oEdmonia Grant, Fair Play for American Fellow-Students of Japanese Descent.
New York: National Commission on Chrisdan Social Reconstruction, 1942-1943, p. 4.
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
338
Their work in reclaiming land in the Imperial Valley and in irri-
gating sandy areas has won them the respect and admiration of those
who understand the problems they have had to solve.
It is worthwhile to read G. Eckstein’s story of Noguchi/^ the poor
Japanese peasant who became one of the world’s greatest scientists
in America. Noguchi’s pure culture of the germ of syphilis, his
discovery of the causes of paresis and locomotor ataxia, his identifica-
tion of Arya fever with another obscure and hitherto unrelated dis-
ease, his work on trachoma and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and
finally his heroic death in Africa caused by the dreaded yellow fever
he was investigating, remains one of the greatest romantic tales of
science.
Yasuo Kuniyoshi is represented in all the major museums and art
collections in America. Winner of many awards and Guggenheim
Fellow in 1935, he is active in the work of many art groups in the
country — the American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers,
the Woodstock Artists Association, the American Artists’ Congress,
Salons of America, and the H. E. Field Art Foundation. He is an in-
structor at the Art Students League and the New School for Social
Research in New York City.
In 1944, Sono Osato, 24-year-old Japanese- American ballerina, was
one of the most popular stars of “One Touch of Venus.”
Little is known in this country about the Japanese underground,
and even less about Japanese idealists such as Taro Yashima who
have suffered pain, hardship, and sometimes death for their rebellious
convictions. Born in 1908, the son of a country doctor, Yashima
decided to devote his talents to the cause of the people; he traveled
the land, earning his rice by illustrating popular magazines. When
that became impossible, he continued the fight as an artist for an
underground newspaper. He was jailed ten times, and his wife, also
an artist, was seized, too, before they left Japan for America some
years ago. They had lost two sons. The Japanese-American sculp-
tor, Isamu Noguchi, says of Yashima’s book. The New Sun: “Yo-
shima’s traditional brushwork shows the influence of such Western
matters as Daumier and Van Gogh. His book should prove truly
useful in exposing the elements that now rule Japan.”
The intense desire of many loyal Americans of Japanese descent
to be called and thought of as Americans rather than Japanese was
G. Eckstein, Noguchi. New York: Harper and Brothers, tpsi.
22 See Taro Yashima, The New Sun. New York: Henry Holt, 1943.
JAPANESE AMERICANS 339
^Voiced by many of them serving in the 442nd Infantry Regiment
at Camp Shelby, Mississippi” (in 1943). One of them wrote:
Fm of Japanese ancestry, but by all rights of birth an American. I’ve
always considered myself an American but by reasons of racial color some
people have referred to me as a “Jap.” There are nearly two regiments
of us here in Shelby and that remark has hurt every one of us. Why
can’t Americans (regardless of racial differences) consider us true Amer-
icans, like they are?
America isn’t a nation of one nationality. It has more cosmopolitan
population than any other nation in this world. Then why should they
have such terrible race prejudice on a minority? Looking back on
American history we find that English have fought English and the con-
sequences was the birth of a new nation, America. Then again in 1812
Americans of English ancestry willingly took up arms against English-
men.
In the first world war Americans of German and Italian ancestry fought
against Germany. Now in this war we find Americans of Italian, Ger-
man and Japanese ancestry more than glad that they can fight the common
enemy. Then why can’t all Americans see that blood isn’t as thick as
the principles of ' democracy. Every single one of us, Americans of
Japanese ancestry in the 442nd Infantry Regiment, would rather fight the
“Japs” than the Germans to prove our loyalty.
There already is a battalion of Americans of Japanese ancestry from
Hawaii in combat in Italy. Many of the boys in the 442nd have brothers
and other relatives in that battalion but still we’re called “Japs.” We
would like nothing better than to join them right now, but as yet our
training isn’t completed. Though I haven’t a brother in a combat zone
yet, there are two of them in service: one a technical sergeant in Camp
Savage, Minnesota, and the other in the service company of the 442nd.
On Dec. 7, 1941, 1 saw the havoc and bloodshed at Pearl Harbor and
helped bury the dead. I tried to volunteer then but was refused. Then
in March (of 1943) the Army called for 1,500 volunteers of Japanese
Americans to form a unique combat team. Though the quota was set
at 1,500, nearly ten thousand men volunteered. Many of my friends ac-
tually cried because they were rejected or weren’t able to receive an
examination because the quota was filled.
Skeptics insisted that only a couple of hundred would volunteer but
they certainly were mistaken. Many here on the mainland of the United
States think we were drafted or that we volunteered because we didn’t
have jobs. I volunteered for one purpose, and that is to do my part,
though how insignificant it may be, to preserve American democracy.
Incidentally, previous to my induction I received more than $10 a day
as an electrician.
23 “Stigma of is Resented by U. S. Japanese” New York Herald-Tribune^
November 14, 1943.
340
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
One great hero of World War II was Ben Kuroki, a technical ser-
geant in the United States Army Air Forces, veteran of thirty heavy
bombing missions against the enemy, survivor of the ruthless, costly
raid on the Ploesti oilfields of Rumania, winner of two Distinguished
Flying Crosses, and wearer of the coveted Air Medal with four oak-
leaf clusters."^
-*“Ben Kuroki, American,” Time, XLIII (February, 1944), p. 26.
CHAPTER XI
The Americas and Our Territorials
A. CANADIAN AMERICANS
T. V. Kjvlijarvi
B efore 1930, a large number of immigrants came to the United
States by way of Canada. Not all of these were Canadian bom,
and some had lived in Canada for only a short period. So confused
is the picture of this Canadian migration that, in spite of statistics,
only the more prominent aspects are clear. Thus, for example, many
Europeans who came to the United States did so by way of Canada,
and therefore should not properly be called Canadian immigrants.
From the beginning of the history of both Canada and the United
States, the people have mingled, thus leaving a confused story of per-
sonal activities, of birth, marriage, life, hardships, struggles, longing,
death, and religion; but by far the larger part of this mingling has
taken place in the United States, for the people of Canadian stock
here far exceed people from this country in Canada. In 193 1 there
were roughly 344,574 United States-bom persons in Canada as con-
trasted with 1,278,421 Canadian bom living in this country.^ This
has been the story for the last century. The ratio may have fluctu-
ated from time to time, particularly around 1900, when the Canadian
influx into the United States was exceptionally great, but relations
have not changed. Thus the unrestricted flow of peoples across our
mumally unguarded international frontier has always been in favor
of the United States.
The 1930 United States census set the number of inhabitants of
Cana dian stock in the United States at 3,3 37,345- Of these, 2,058,824
were children of Canadian parentage. Equivalent figures for 1940
are 2,910,1 58 and i ,866,040. The Canadian Americans totaled about
1 See Leon E. Trnesdell, The Cmadian Bom in the Uttked States, pp. 14, 47 ff-
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943.
342
THE AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
2.7 per cent of the whole population of the country.^ These people,
both French- and English-speaking Canadians, were located in the
New England states. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Indiana, lUinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, North
Dakota, Nebraska, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Florida, Mon-
tana, Colorado. Washington, Oregon, and California.®
Division
The people of Canada are primarily French and English. The for-
mer were the first settlers, having established themselves shortly after
1600. The English are fairly new comers. In 1763, when Canada
was officially ceded to England by France, and in 1775, the popula-
tion of Canada was sriU practically aU French. But the nineteenth
century saw migration from the British Isles into Canada, and the
migrants, settling over the whole country, threatened to engulf the
French Canadians. In spite of this, as late as 1931 four fifths of the
people of the Province of Quebec were still French, and so was one
third of the people of New Brunswick, 1 5 per cent of those of Prince
Edward Island, and 1 1 per cent of those of Nova Scotia.
This fact is of significance for the United States, for the Canadian
migrants have brought to this country their two languages and race
groups. The Frenchman remains fairly constant and by himself.
The Anglo Saxon, being recruited constantly from the British Isles
and from various parts of the United States, has found no great need
for group solidarity. Everything conceivable separates the two
people, not only language, but cultural institutions, rehgion, political
views, and sentiments of the deepest sort. With the English-speaking
group constantly growing, it is not surprising to learn that of the
1,278,421 Canadian-born people within our borders in 1930, 370,852,
or 29 per cent, were French, 907,569, or 68.9 per cent, were Enghsh,
and only 26,815, or 2.1 per cent, came from other countries. These
“other” nationalities were in the order of their size German, Yiddish,
Polish, Italian, Russian, Ukrainian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and
Icelandic.* In 1940, the ratio of French and non-French was almost
2 These figures should be accepted with some reservation, for, as will be seen
later, there are manjr third- and fourth-generation French Canadians who still speak
French and are as thoroughly a part of that civilization and culture as if they were
located in the province of Quebec. Later figures given under the heading of French
Canadians make allowances for this and as far as possible include these people in
the calculating.
® Tmesdell, op, ck., pp. 54, 55.
^Truesdell, op. cit,, pp. 46-47.
CANADIAN AMERICANS
343
identical with that in 1930, the numbers being 944,119 and
In order to understand our own people, it is important to recognize
this difference between the French Canadians and the English Ca-
nadians who have settled within our borders. As will be seen, the
French retain a cultural homogeneity, while the English-speak-
ing people have a tendency to merge with the people of the United
States.
English-speaking and other Canadians — exclusive of the French.
The Enghsh-speaking Canadians who have settled in this country
tend to seek employment as skilled workmen, foremen, and clerks.
A fairly large group have become farmers. For the most part they
mingle directly in the communities into which they have moved,
especially where there are large or substantial groups of Anglo-Saxon
origin, and thus attract little attention and comment. Since their
institutional and cultural background is the same as that which pre-
dominates in this country, their migration across the border leaves
them with little distinction from the rest of the people among whom
they settle, except an occasional deep-seated loyalty to everything
Canadian, in which respect they do not differ from many other
people in the United States.
T he French Canadians voithin our borders. The French Canadians
in the United States constitute a distinct cultural group. To their
number belong not only naigrants of the first and second generations,
but many of the third and fourth and even older generations. They
number between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 persons, depending upon
the source of the figures.® Most of them are concentrated in New
England, the Eastern seaboard, and the border states of Illinois, Michi-
gan, and Wisconsin. Substantial groups may also be found in Cali-
fornia and Louisiana.
These people are rugged, virile, industrious, and possessed of loyalty
to their parish, family, religion, language, and institutions, all of
which is amply testified to by the close relations that tie them together
here and with Canada. They are generous and warm-hearted, yet
they also know how to save and to exist on very little. Their Ca-
nadian experience of competition with the rising tide of English
migration, replenished as has been previously explained, has left the
French Canadians only one recourse if they are to survive, and that is
^For an analysis of some of these statistics see the discussion and references in
Thorsten V. Kalijarvi, “French Canadians in the United States,” The Anmls of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 223 (September, 1942), pp.
344 the AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
retention of their culture and large families. This philosophy and
this social phenomenon they have brought with them to the United
States. In fact there is a belt extending from New York across
the Canadian frontier throughout the province of Quebec and the
other areas previously mentioned where these people live, work, and
grow stronger and more numerous day by day.
The migrations of the French Canadians to this country go back
as far as 1623. The earliest settlers located on Manhattan, in Massa-
chusetts, Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island. The struggle for
survival in Canada and the lure of better-paying jobs across the frontier
have been the chief incentives to migration during recent years. Most
of them have come from St. Hyacinthe, Trois Rivieres, Rimouski,
Belle Chasse, and la Beauce, although many have come from other
areas.® The greatest influx took place between i860 and 1890.
In the United States, the French Canadians gravitate to the larger
urban communities and seek opportunities as semiskilled workers in
manufacturing.’' In 1910, over 35 per cent of the immigrant Ca-
nadian French could be classed as semiskilled workers, and the ratio
remains about the same today. Some continue to farm, some enter
the professions, some are wholesale and retail dealers, proprietors, and
other kindred groups; but for the most part these latter belong to the
second and third generations.
The life of the Canadian Frenchman centers chiefly around his
parish and his home. The family is a strong cohesive unit, and this
fact has permitted the French groups to survive and grow in this
country. Next to the family as a unifying influence is the church,
modeled on that of Brittany and Normandy. The home and church
influences permeate their h’terature and their thinking. Schools, too,
have a unifying effect. Language and culture have been stressed as
parts of the program of survival, and these have been carried forward
by French parochial schools, colleges, and other educational institu-
tions, for the Frenchman has feared entrusting his children to the
teaching of “strangers.” The press, too, has been one of the great
vehicles of group unity and cohesion.
Some associations that bind the French-Canadian population both
here and in Canada into a united people are the Societe Lafayette, the
Societe Jacques Cartier, VUnion Saint-Jean Baptiste d’Amerique, and
the Le^on Franco-Americaine.
«See The Armais ^ op, cit., p. 133.
^ See Truesdell, op, cit,, p. 203.
CANADIAN AMERICANS
345
Inter- American Relationships
“Since 1918, immigration from Canada to the United States has
practically ceased. However, relationships have been maintained
through societies that have a membership in both countries. For in-
stance, La Societe des Artisans Canadiens-Frangais, whose head office
is in Montreal, and La Societe de V Asso^nption, with its home office in
Moncton, have many chapters in New England. On the other hand,
the Association Canada- Americaine, with headquarters in Manchester,
has one third of its members in the province of Quebec. All groups
meet in general conventions and carry on an interchange of visits.
French-Canadian newspapers and books are read by Franco-Ameri-
cans. Lecturers from French Canada are invited to the United States.
Relatives visit one another. Many Franco-American parents send
their children, boys and girls, to the colleges and convents of Quebec.
In substance, relations are of a cultural nature, economical, political,
and social ties being negligible.” ®
The f resent and a Look Ahead
The attitude of these people toward the war is one of fullest sup-
port to the Allied and Aunerican cause. A large number of French
Canadians in the army during World War I and World War 11
would indicate that their loyalty amounts to enthusiastic support.
Like most bilingual people in the United States, the French Americans
believe that one of the effects of the war will be the teaching in
American schools of more modem languages, the unilingual attitude
of the past haviag failed to provide our soldiers with a knowledge of
languages necessary to conduct the war.®
^^at the future trend of the Canadian migration to this country
may be is impossible to teU. It is possible that, with Canada under-
going an industrial revolution during the present war, the French
Canadi an s in this country may find a new opportunity beckoning
them in the land from which they migrated. It is equally possible
that the continued growth of the Anglo-Saxon group will cause the
migrations of the French to continue in the future. Whichever oc-
curs, there are signs that the French Canadians will find it harder and
harder with the passing of years to maintain their cultural and racial
unity in this country.
»From a letter of June 23, 1944, from Adolphe Robert, president general of the
Association Camdo-Americaine.
THE AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
346
B. LATIN AA'IERICANS
Quincy Guy Burris
In 1940 the people of Spanish mother tongue in this country num-
bered 1,861,400/ Though they speak a common language, hold a
common faith, enjoy a common economic level, and resent iu common
the racial discrimination sporadically leveled against them, they are
by no means one people. In their origins, in their geographical dis-
tribution, in their length of residence here, and in their histories they
present so heterogeneous a front that no honest discussion of their
status as a minority can ignore any of these facets.
Some 428,360 are foreign born. The 8 per cent of these who,
according to the census of 1930, came from Spain have no place in
this discussion. Another 5 per cent represents the immigration from
South and Central America and the West Indies. The remainder,
reckoned in 1943® as 421,165, came from Mexico.® Those bom
in this country of foreign or mixed parentage, some 714,060, must
be regarded as the children of less recent immigrants, likewise pre-
ponderantly from Mexico. A third class of 718,980 were bom
in this country of native parentage. Unlike the first groups, this
group falls into two large and widely separated phylons: the children
of the third or of some earlier generation of Mexican immigrants con-
stimte one; the other comprises the descendants of those whom the
conquistadors left here.
These people are widely dispersed through the United States. In
groups of 2,000 and more they live and work in twenty-eight states.
In eleven states they are found in areas of heavy concentration;
Texas, 738,440; California, 416,140; New Mexico, 221,740; New
York,* 129,260; Arizona, 101,880; Colorado, 92,540; Florida, 25,100;
Illinois, 23,940; Kansas, 13,060; Michigan, 11,860; and Pennsylvania,
7,360.
^Sixteenth Census of the United States^ Series F-15, No. i, June 9, 1942. These
round numbers were arrived at by the tabulation of returns from a 5 per cent cross
section of the population enumerated in the 1940 census. The margin of error is
computed to be less than 10 per cent. Various unofficial estimates put the total
number much higher — ^some as high as 4,000,000.
2 United States Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service,
Alien Registration Division, Registered Aliens Bom in Mexico Classified by State
of Residence^ June 30, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
3 No account is given here of the seasonal influx of agricultural workers from
Mexico.
^ Of this total for New York, 45,973 are Puerto Ricans, of whom 44,908 live and
work in New York City.
LATIN AMERICANS
347
In the eastern and midwestem states, they have congregated in
large colonies in the cities, preserved their language, and presented
a solid ethnic front to the world. Many of these people work in
the mechanic trades. In the Southwest and on the Pacific coast,
however, they lie dispersed in valleys given to agriculture and stock-
raising, though they are found in considerable numbers in San
Antonio, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Five states, Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado,
account for 1,570,740, or 85 per cent, of the total Latin-American
population. So heavy a preponderance may be explained at once
by the fact that, during the decade from 1921—1930, immigrants
poured into these states in a tide unequaled before or since. It is
reasonable to suppose that, on so extended a border, many crossed
into this country without troubling to declare their entry.
This explanation, however, cannot stand without being qualified.
The tide of immigrants flowed into Texas, California, and Arizona
in overwhelming numbers. In New Mexico, a poor state, and in
Colorado, which lies 250 miles north of the border, immigration was
slight even in the peak years. The contact of older generations of
Spanish-speaking residents with the few immigrants who came to
these states was charged with mutual dislike and bore fruit in a dis-
tinction: Those who claimed descent from the conquistadors called
themselves Spanish Americans and looked with scorn upon the new-
comers. Actually, many of the Spanish Americans are of Spanish
and Indian blood. So are the Mexicans, with perhaps a little admix-
ture of darker blood somewhere in their chemistry. However trivial
this demarcation may appear to be, it is a persistent one, and one
which we must take into account from this point on.
The stream of Mexican immigration is young. From its beginning
in 1848, shortly after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it mounted
steadily until, fattened by the cheap labor markets of railroads,
ranchers, cotton plantations, sugar-beet fields, and pecan shelling,
the decade from 1921-1930 showed a total of 459,287 immigrants.
Since then it has shrunk to a mere trickle. Almost all of these mi-
grants were laborers.® In California they settled thickly in agricul-
tural and stock-raising valleys, though some drifted to the cities. In
both places their life was lowly — ^mining, sheepherding, agricultural
work, and some mechamcal work in the cities. In Arizona they fol-
lowed a similar pattern. In Texas they spread into aU but sixteen
5 In the years following the Mexican Rebellion of 1911, a good many Mexican
families of a higher economic level migrated to this country.
348 THE AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
counties, eking out an existence by picking cotton, shelling pecans,
and harvesting sugar beets. Their presence in Texas has made one
of the ugliest scenes in the theater of cheap labor.
The stream that lodged the children of the conquistadors in the
Southwest and on the coast has long since dried up. The story of
the settlement of the territories in the Southwest and California by
the clergy and the military together is too familiar to need recounting
here. Onate brought 140 people with him in 1598 — eighty armored,
russet-bearded, blue-eyed soldiers of Spain, their servants, and a few
others. There were not many women in the party. In 1695 Padre
Farfan brought seventy families from Mexico to refound the razed
village of Santa Cruz, in New Mexico.
The Spaniards, with princely grants of land from the king’s viceroy,
brought with them the economic and land system of the encomienda,
a lordly system in which the lord of a tract of land controlled the
people on it. Presently the people on the grant found themselves in
debt to the land-holder, and the system of patron-peon arose. This
peonage was based on debt. The patron controlled the land and
owned it. Likewise, he owned and controlled vast numbers of people.
If it be asked what people, the answer is simple: children born out
of wedlock were looked upon kindly. Indeed, the land-grant holders
encouraged illegitimate births. The population flourished. In 1 804
the population of Nuevo Mejico was computed at 39,797 people dis-
tributed in three parishes, twenty-six pueblos, and nineteen missions.
In 1827, Antonio Narvona reported it as 43,439, and a report of
1840 places it at 55,403.® Today more than 220,000 New Mexicans
count the conquistadors among the lustres of their ancestry.
In 1848 the same treaty that started Mexican immigration opened
the Southwest to the Anglos from the eastern states. Shrewd-eyed,
money-minded, land-hungry, and aggressive, they filed into the
country in their wagons. The patron retreated, selling his lands for
taxes, losing them in htigation, wrapping his shrunken holdings about
him. In 1867 the Peonage Law gave the peon a freedom he did not
know how to value. His one-time patron still held to his lands and
his houses and met the Anglo with hauteur. The peon, landless, was
left to his own devices, and in devices outside his dependence on the
patron he was and has always been bankrupt. Ultimately he too
retreated before the Anglos, took up his residence in the mountainous
^Figures taken from Noticias Historiciis y Estadisticas de la Antigua Provincial
del Nuevo Mejico, compEed by Jose Augustin de Escudero and published in
Mexico, June 22, 1849.
LATIN AMERICANS
349
northern part of the state, and settled down in bewilderment to cul-
tivate his green valleys by age-old methods. There he sires a large
family, speaks a corrupt and shrinking Spanish, lives in a faded dream
of ancestral splendor, and dies too young. His poverty deepens.
Memories of the patron-peon system color his view of the nation’s
democratic processes. To him, an elected official is not a public
servant; he is a dispenser of patronage. Every new hardship he
greets with a shrug. “Dios lo quiereP
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
These diverse groups, the Mexican immigrants and their children
on the one hand and the Spanish Americans on the other, sundered
as they are by mutual dislike, nevertheless share certain traits and
conditions which draw them together. Certain of these have already
been enumerated: language, Catholicism, poverty, a resentment of
racial discrimination. There are others.
Though many, out of confusion and want of understanding, do not
exercise their rights as citizens and are in no real sense parts of the
nation, they are not without organizations intended to correct their
shortcomings: In 1929, at Harligen, Texas, Judge J. T. Canales and
some associates set in motion a plan to stir in Latin Americans a knowl-
edge of and a confidence in their status as American citizens. Though
prior efforts to achieve this end had met with failure, this one proved
to be the nucleus of a movement that swept over all the Southwest and
that ultimately took shape in the League of United Latin-American
Citizens, with chapters in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona,
and California. The basic purpose of this organization is to Amer-
icanize the Latin American. Three of the programs set afoot in
this common purpose deserve pointed mention: ( i ) to urge the neces-
sity of learning and using Enghsh; (2) to encourage the development
of loyal Americans; (3) to inform an already blindly loyal people
in the principles and ideals implicit in American citizenship. The
league promises much in the intricate process of drawing the Latin
American from his retirement into the full stream of participation in
American life.
Contributions to American Life
If ignorance, poverty, and the bent back of labor were all that Latin
Americans have brought to the United States, their contribution to
American life would be small indeed. With the first puny expedi-
tion into the new land, however, came men of understanding, culti-
350
THE AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
vated men, men of vision. And they have continued to come. With
them they brought the architecture of old Spain. Wherever the
friars settled, there rose the cloisters and arcades reminiscent of Moor-
ish buildings. Transplanted from Spain to Mexico and again from
Mexico to this country, the Spanish colonial style of architecture
distinguishes the Southwest and California with grilled windows, tiled
floors, portales, and occasional balconies. Some of the earlier ranch
houses are fashioned in what is called the Spanish Ranch manner,
though in New Mexico much recent public and private building has
followed the pueblo pattern and lines.
In the Southwest, likewise, the melancholy that pervades even the
gayest of Latin-American music haunts the ear. Some of the songs
have been broadcast repeatedly on national radio systems.'^ Dances
such as the varsovmia and the raspah feature in the social dancing of
the Southwest and have been introduced in the East.
The painting of Latin-American artists such as the muralist, Diego
Rivera, and his school, has exerted a powerful influence upon art and
artists in the United States.
The Htigation that clouded the titles of land grants for nearly
seventy-five years has added to the legal knowledge of land-grant
procedure. We are indebted as well to the Latin Americans for some
knowledge of the law as it concerns mining rights, the property rights
of women,® and water rights as they concern streams. Indeed, along
with this last we have learned something of irrigation rights and pro-
cedures. The Southwest has treastired its water by erecting legal
defenses. The Latin Americans were before us in this as in other
matters.
Our cattle country lore stems from long Latin-American experi-
ence with cattle on the ranges of the Southwest, for the Latin Amer-
icans bred and herded cattle here for generations before the appear-
ance of the Anglos. Indeed, American English, which borrows
freely whatever it finds useful from other languages, has appropriated
much of the Spanish vocabulary pertinent to cattle management:
corral, lariat, chaps, rodeo are only a sampling of such words. Others
of a different sort have been taken as well: patio, siesta, rio, adios,
arroyo, coyote, and ace quia, among others.
The history of Latin Americans in this country is opulent in
romance and the legendry of early times — a legendry only now, after
7 Much music and many dances recently popular in this country have come here
because of the heightened friendship of Latin America and the United States,
s Among Spanish- American heirs, daughters and sons share alike.
LATIN AMERICANS 35 1
generations of tale-telling by word of mouth, being written down.
A great many writers, among whom J. Frank Dobie, of the Univer-
sity of Texas, is perhaps the best known, have mined and are mining
these deposits of folk tale and early romance. Even a partial roll of
these writers would be too long for inclusion here.
Though it is hardly a new thing in itself, the Latin American’s
emphasis upon solidarity in the family is worth mention among his
contributions to a society that seems at times bent on forgetting such
unity. Similarly, his passionate attachment to the land deserves no-
tice. Cold analysis of conditions among these people in the South-
west may lead critics to observe, as they have done, that the Latin
Americans are attached to the land only because they are too poor
to leave it. Whatever the cause, the attachment exists and must be
reckoned among their virtues as a contribution.
Beside the contributions some other peoples have made to the
multi-faceted culture of America, the sum of Latin-American con-
tribution is not great. Nevertheless, it pervades the immense reaches
of the Southwest, where it is made the more conspicuous by the ab-
sence, until recent years, of any other contribution comparable in
power and extent.
Impact of World War II
Despite the attempts of misguided police and an irresponsible press
to fasten a charge of criminal inclination upon an entire people, as
represented by a few essentially harmless Mexican youths dressed in
eccentric suits, and despite attempts to fasten upon the “Zoot-suiters”
a connection with the program of Sinarquism in this country,® Latin
Americans must be regarded as loyal citizens.^® World War II is not
the first war they have helped us to fight. In 1898- their names
studded the rolls of the Rough Riders against Spain. During the
first World War the meager population of the Southwest gave heavily
of its Spanish men. Casualty lists from France were sonorous with
Spanish names. In World War II, 250,000 Spanish-speaking Amer-
ican soldiers served in every comer of the globe to which the war
penetrated. One out of every four men on Bataan Peninsula was
a Latin American from New Mexico.
» Carey McWilliams, “The Zoot-Suit Riots," The New Republic, CVin (June 21,
1943). PP- 818-820; “Los Angeles Pachuco Gangs,” The New Republic, CVTI (January
1 -^ Pioirdo, “Sinarquism in the United States," The New Republic,
CtX (July 26, 1943), PP- 97-102,
352
THE AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
In certain respects, however, the impact of the second World War
is destined to work a change in the life of the Latin American in
the United States. War-bom emphasis upon the principle of equality
among us has thrown a searching light upon many of the inequahties
to be found in our midst. It has awakened the conscience of America
to the presence of depressed minorities in this country, the Latin
Americans among them. Our program of friendship with Latin
America has raised the question of how well we had done by the
minorities who live here.
Moreover, the Latin-American youth, drawn from his quiet village
by the draft, trained, and shipped to the distant reaches of the earth,
win not willingly return to the cramped outlook of his village.
Neither wiU he submit meekly to the discrimination that has ham-
pered him in the past. His horizon has stretched. He has seen the
earth and judged it. He knows his citizenship in this democracy,
and it will be strange indeed if we do not hear his voice asking for
a fuller part in the affairs of his nation.
Problems of Inter cultural Education
Before any program of intercultural education can be contemplated,
Spanish Americans must be educated in American values. Before
they can become a link between the Americas, they must be brought
flush with the civilization in which they hve.
The difiiculties of educating the people of this minority to full
participation in the affairs of the nation are bewildering in their
number and dimensions. Their present status is a vicious downward
spiral of ignorance, apathy, poverty, squalor, antiquated agricultural
methods, badly balanced diets, shrinking and impoverished fields,
resentment against discrimination, lack of confidence rooted in a
feehng of inferiority, and exploitation by their own political leaders.
They are apathetic because of their diet; because of their apathy they
neglect their crops. Every phase entails another. Where to begin?
Their children, taught to speak Spanish from the cradle, do not
flourish in schools where the medium of instruction is fixed by law
as English. They find themselves from one to three years behind
English-speaking pupils in comprehension and achievement. From
the fifth grade on they quit in numbers every year. If they persist
through high school and college, even then they face the question of
Racial discrimination in Texas has barred Larin Americans from restaurants,
theaters, and public recreations. In some sections they must attend schools set aside
for them.
LATIN AMERICANS
353
getting jobs worthy of their education. Many county school systems
will not employ a skilled Spanish American even for the teaching of
Spanish. It is no great wonder that they go back to their villages
discouraged, there to forget what they knew in the apathy of rural
life.
So far as the education of their children goes, the chief barrier is
the fact that schools and curricula too often and too consistently take
no cognizance of the lingual obstacle these children must meet. In-
struction which has proved successful in the East or Middle West fails
here. The failure of the children cannot be charged to natural
stupidity, racial worthlessness, or biological inferiority. These ex-
planations are too facile; they break down under scientific scrutiny.
Poorly qualified teachers and teacher turnover are better explana-
tions.
Experiment and research in the adjustment of curricula and in-
struction to the needs of these children are not wanting. Colleges
and schools of the Southwest teem with ideas and discussion. In
Texas, Professor H. T. Manuel of the University of Texas has long
been engaged in investigation of nonlingual intelligence tests for
Latin-American children. These tests are themselves being tested,
and the results are to be published. Under the auspices of the Uni-
versity of Texas and the State Department of Education, Dr. Wilson
Little has conducted an Administrative Study of Children of Latin-
American Descent in Texas.
In New Mexico, Professor L. S. Tireman of the University of New
Mexico has conducted control schools at Nambe and at San Jose,
schools that reached out among the surrounding people to gather
information and to make the school the focus of intelligent effort for
the whole community. Dr. Michel Pijoan and others have con-
ducted experiments in dietetics and instruction at Taos. Professor
Antonio ReboUedo, of New Mexico Ehghlands University, has
reached numbers of the Spanish- American people with the publication
of his Ammecer, a magazine for schools with a vocabulary based on
an actual word-count of the Spanish vocabulary in northeastern New
Mexico. During the summer of 1943, at the same university, the
writer directed an Institute of the Air under the auspices of the
Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Twenty Latin-American
schoolteachers from the northern counties of the state were brought
together with consultants in sanitation, health, sociology, and many
other fields. What we learned there Mr. Ramon Sender distilled into
thirty discourses in Spanish for broadcasting. During the winter th?
354
THE AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
schoolteachers conducted listening centers in their schools. The dis-
courses were broadcast to as many as a thousand people attending the
centers. During the summer of 1944, the writer directed an investi-
gation and experiment in English in rural New Mexico, also under
the auspices of the Coordinator.
No account of what has been and is being done in New Mexico
toward the solution of these problems would be complete without
mention of the School of Inter-American Affairs, housed in the Uni-
versity of New Mexico and directed by Dr. Joaquin Ortega. Not
only has this organization published important treatises on the Latin-
American minority, but it has also encouraged the presentation of
programs for rural improvements and helped to finance them. It
goes without saying that the educators in California, Arizona, and
Colorado are equally awake to the problem and at work on it.
The plight of the Latin-American minority in the United States
is too complex to admit of an easy solution. It will not be bettered
in a few months. It will take years. We have made a beginning.
C. FILIPINO AMERICANS
Emory S. Bogardus
Filipinos began to migrate in significant numbers first to the Terri-
tory of Hawaii about 1906 and then to the mainland of the United
States after the close of World War I. The sugar planters of Hawaii,
ever on the lookout for supplies of “cheap labor,” entered into ar-
rangements with steamship companies to bring Filipino laborers to
the Islands in slowly increasing numbers from 1906 to 1920. Begin-
ning in 1920, the planters experienced increasing difficulty with
Japanese laborers, and in 1924 the latter were excluded from entry to
the United States (and hence to the Territory of Hawaii). Thus,
during this period, Filipino immigration increased considerably.
From 1925 to 1930 there occurred a large influx of FUipinos into
Hawaii. The census of 1930 showed a total of 63,052 Filipinos in
Hawaii and a total of 45,208 on the mainland. The census of 1940
gave the Filipiao population of Hawaii as 52,569, and that of the main-
land as 45,563. A definite decrease in numbers had begun in Hawaii,
due to the depression, while the Filipinos on the mainland managed to
hold their own.
Since 1930 the immigration movement has been greatly slowed
down, while at the same time emigration of Filipinos developed in
considerable proportions. Therefore, Filipinos have come to Hawaii
and the mainland chiefly during the 1920-1930 decade, with the
FILIPINO AMERICANS
355
highest points being reached during the latter half of the decade. The
decline since 1930, due to the depression, will remain permanent, for
in 1935, when the Philippines became a commonwealth, the immi-
gration of Filipinos to Hawaii and to the mainland was limited to
fifty a year. According to the plans for the establishment of the
independent commonwealth, the Philippines were to become a free
repubhc in 1946 and to be given an immigration quota of 100 a year.^
This arrangement would have put the Filipinos on an immigration
quota basis, but it made no provision for Filipino immigrants in the
United States to become naturalized citizens.
The causes of Fihpino immigration to Hawaii were nearly all eco-
nomic. The urge for wages that 'v^ere distinctly higher than in the
Philippines was the chief factor. The desire of plantation owners and
operators in Hawaii for “cheap labor” was a concomitant primary
cause.
Migration to the mainland has taken place extensively on an eco-
nomic basis. Perhaps two thirds of the Filipino young men have
come because of the lure of rural work, and partly because of city
jobs and the glamour of urban life. A considerable number have
migrated to the mainland in order to get a high-school and college
education. This number, a minority of Fihpino immigrants, declined
greatly during the economic depression. Many of the city workers
have been school attendants. As far as their economic resources go,
numerous Fihpinos have shown ambition, enthusiasm, and persistence
in seeking an education in the United States.
Cultural Differentiation and Assimilation
The places of settlement of Fihpino immigrants have been planta-
tion communities of Hawah, agricultural communities in the Pacific
coast states, and the larger cities of the United States, not only on the
Pacific coast but also east of the Rockies, where there are fair-sized
Fihpino communities, particularly in Chicago, New York, and Wash-
ington, D. C. Many Filipino immigrants do not become permanently
settled because they are so widely subject to the fluctuating condi-
tions of migratory labor. Moreover, nearly all have come with the
idea of returning to the Islands. Their lack of home life and the
absence of Fihpino women also account for lack of permanent settle-
ments.
Often their community life takes the form of a labor camp, as in
lAn exception to these quotas is the arrangement that may be made with the
Secretary of the Interior of the United States to admit Filipinos to work in Hawaii
under contract conditions.
35 ^
THE AMERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
Hawaii and in agricultural regions on the Pacific coast. Sometimes
they work for a labor contractor of their own racial group and room
and board together in dormitories or bare haUs. In cities, they live
in boarding and rooming houses. In the larger centers — for example,
Los Angeles, where as many as six thousand have resided — ^they
develop a “little Manila” which is largely a downtown congregating
center with a few Philippine stores and clubrooms as a nucleus. On
the Pacific coast there has been a considerable movement of Filipinos
into rural districts during the spring months. As the harvesting ends
in the fall, a return to the cities occurs. Thus, the Fihpino population
of these cities fluctuates greatly and is largest in the winter.
The ratio between the sexes is important. The population figufes
for 1940 show that the males outnumbered the females about 14 to i.
This unbalanced ratio creates many social problems relating to mar-
riage, recreation, and the like. Such disproportion suggests a number
of problems. In labor camps only young men live for months. The
great preponderance of males and the extensive lack of family life not
only further migratoriness but promote restlessness, instability of per-
sonahty, and abnormal social life. Despite these difficulties, the
Filipino immigrant has maintained a relatively high standard of morals.
The age range of Filipino immigrants is also important. For the
most part they were young men between the ages of fifteen and thirty-
five when they came. As the years have come and gone the age level
has correspondingly advanced, for few young persons (or older, for
that matter) have immigrated during the past fifteen years.
In addition to lack of women, the life of the Filipino immigrant is
decidedly abnormal because of the small number of children, the low
percentage of persons of middle life, and the absence of older people.
Although aU these factors mean absence of social restraints, the
behavior record of this group of immigrants as a whole is good.
Occupations. On the mainland,® the wages of the Filipinos vary
greatly. On the Pacific coast, where the large majority are found,
the leading forms of employment in the cities are represented by cooks
and dishwashers, janitors, bellhops, and elevator boys. Housework
and hotel work, however, are not normal or natural for a Filipino boy.
He has done this work because there was little else available to bim
in the city. At first he lived on enthusiasm and hopes of better days.
Then he grew disillusioned. His get-rich plans went astray. In the
depression period which began in 1930 he sometimes found himself
2 For discussion of the Filipino in Hawaii, see Chapter XI, D, “Hawaiian Minority
Groups.”
FILIPINO AMERICANS
357
among the first to be “fired,” because he was a “foreigner.” With
the advent of defense and war industries, he found his occupational
opportunities somewhat more varied and his wages increased, but a
sense of insecurity was still uppermost in his mind.
Agriculture has been his other main center of activity, particularly
in Cahfomia and Washington. He has worked directly for a labor
boss of his own race and has Hved “in either dilapidated houses and
bams or in large buildings which remind one of hastily constructed
military barracks.” ®
The types of farm work are largely unskilled. He competes chiefly
with the white casual laborer. “In the summer and fall he harvests
fruit, beans, lettuce, and tomatoes. In the winter he goes south and
works in the oranges, olives, and other products of the soil.” Usually
his services are arranged for through the Filipino labor contractor,
who usually deducts a liberal percentage from his wages, but who
in turn furnishes him with rice and other cheap foods and simple
rooming quarters for $1.50 or more a day. American growers or
farmers usually speak highly of the Filipino. Through the Filipino
contractor, he may be employed in small or large numbers, and for
short periods or for whole seasons. He “works far better” than does
the white casual laborer, or most people of other racial groups.
“Since Filipinos are of a very slight build, they are unsuited to certain
types of work which have fallen to their lot. For instance, they find
it hard, when they pick fruit, to carry the heavy orchard ladders.” *
Many Filipinos have been accustomed to go to Alaska to work in the
salmon canneries in the summers. All the problems of migratory
labor are theirs.
Housing conditions are often bad. While improvements have been
made in recent years in Hawaii, on the mainland the Filipino rural
laborers sometimes live in {i made-over bam, a renovated house, or a
shed. In order to make every penny go as far as possible, several
young men will occupy the same room. A lack of adequate and
varied food is also serious. The difference between the climate con-
ditions of the semitropical Philippines and of the North Temperate
Zone creates special adjustment problems in clothing and in housing.
Recreation. The leisure-time problems of the Filipino immigrant
are legion. In Hawaii, an attempt is made in some of the plantation
camps to enable the Filipinos to use their spare time constructively.
» Donald E. Anthony, “Fflipino Labor in Central America,” Sociology and Social
Research, XVI, p. 155.
*Ibid., p. 153.
358 THE AAIERICAS AND OUR TERRITORIALS
In the rural camps on the mainland, spare hours are often whiled away
in almost idle fashion. In the cities, the poolroom, the motion-picture
show, and the dance halls are favorite gathering places. Barred from
normal social life, the “taxi” dance hall enables the Filipino young
men to dance with American girls, usually at ten cents a dance.®
Poolrooms occupy a great deal of the leisure time of the Filipinos.
Prize fights in which Filipino lightweight boxers participate draw a
large attendance of Filipino young men.
A number of religious groups. Catholic and Protestant, offer some
of the Filipinos an activity program and clubrooms. Filipinos have
a number of social clubs and related organizations which provide a
helpful atmosphere.
Education. Educationally the Filipinos experience a variety of
problems. Since the majority are without families, Filipino children
are few^ and scattered. They are not segregated and constitute no
problem.
Among that minority of Filipinos who are educationally minded,
there are many who attend adult evening classes. Sometimes they
drop out of school entirely for a period of time in order to pay bdls
and to save a little money, and then they continue with their school-
work. Many have shown great and commendable persistence in
seeking an education. A few have won the degree of doctor of
philosophy in an American university.
Filipino students have had special hardships. The economic prob-
lem has been very real. Except for a small percentage who came in
the twenties on government fellowships or who have had financial
support from parents, the rank and file have had to earn all their own
living as they went along. Some have worked long hours in cafes,
private homes, and fraternity houses; others have been forced out of
school for months at a time in order to accumulate a little money.
Another difficulty that some have faced is inadequate preparation in
the Philippines. Many have not found it easy to qualify as successful
students because of weak secondary school preparation. As a result,
they have felt themselves discriminated against by teachers. Still
another problem is race prejudice. They have been classed with
“Orientals” and thus subjected to all the prejudices that unthinking
Americans often express. Although the Filipino dresses unusually
“ See Paul G. Cressey, The Tam-Dmce Hall. Chicago: The University of Chi-
cago Press, 1932,
FILIPINO AMERICANS
359
well, is always carefully groomed, and is youthful and optimistic,
he has not been able to achieve the social status that he seeks and
deserves.
In the educational dream of many, the goal is the laudable one of
the professions, often the law. But the road is unusually long and
difficult for the Filipino aspirant. Moreover, he has often suffered
from lack of adequate educational advice. In lieu of this help, he
has gone ahead on the basis of his own desires and without much
guidance.
Fraternities in colleges are not open to Filipinos. The opportu-
nities of fraternal organizations that provide any of the usual forms of
insurance are usually not available to them. However, an informal
group of Filipinos will stand by one another and share their slender
resources with one who has “gone broke” or become ill. Unlimited
sacrifices for themselves and for one another comprise the story of
the Filipinos m the United States.
Filipmos love music. They entertain themselves for long hours
with the guitar, mandolin, and flute. Little is offered them, however,
in the United States, to develop their talents in this connection.
The press. The Filipino newspapers and magazines in the United
States are a remarkable testimonial to the mental alertness and ambition
of Filipinos. The combined newspaper-magazine has been the most
common type and contains news items, editorials, signed articles, the
writings of columnists, photographs, and advertising. The news-
paper-magazine is a wise combination, for the clientele is not large
enough to justify the pubhcation of a regul